


The Absence of Light

by hellowkatey



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), star - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Emotional Roller Coaster, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Hurts So Good, Mortis (Star Wars), Slow Burn, Truce
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-03-04 16:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13368405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellowkatey/pseuds/hellowkatey
Summary: It has been four months since Starkiller was destroyed. Rey is training with Luke and Kylo Ren is trying to figure out what to do with this newfound Force Bond and how to use it to find her. In the midst of their separation Rey is sent to Mortis, a planet in Wild Space, to investigate suspicious activity involving Ren. Ren also is sent to Mortis for similar reasons. With a new common enemy, Rey and Ren must team up to save themselves while also finding the line between hate and desire is harder to distinguish than they thought.Force Bonds, dream sequences, some life saving, a few emo hours, and lots of Rey and Ren banter.*on hiatus due to writers block :( *(set after TFA and includes some themes discussed in TLJ)





	1. I.I The Bond

**Part 1: Abduction**

 

_“Scavenger_ ” The voice echoes in Rey’s meditative mind. Her eyes snap open, searching for the source. There is one person with a voice so deep and haunting to Rey. Kylo Ren must be close. Rey’s heart begins to flutter with anxious energy as she rises to her feet. Stepping out of the hut she lives in, Rey takes in the grassy hills and rolling waves of the nearby body of water. Closing her eyes, she feels over the surface of the island, searching for an indication of Ren’s presence. She feels nothing, which she should have if he had come. He is too strong with the Force to miss.

           Instead, she feels a different presence. From behind her hut, Master Luke appears, his eyebrows raised in curiosity.

She had been with Master Luke for two months. He had finally agreed to train her in the basics of the Jedi arts. He felt the raw strength of The Force within her and decided it was better yielded than left to fester with the possibility of being turned to darkness. She still has yet to convince him to advance her training beyond the surface level skills, but she feels that wouldn’t take much convincing as Luke’s likeness to her as his student increased by the day.

“What are you looking for?” Luke asks, slowly making his way to face her.

“I don’t know,” Rey replies, genuinely not sure of what she expected. Maybe it’s her imagination. Maybe it’s just her mind playing sick tricks on her. Rey has not seen Kylo Ren in person for two months since their fight on Starkiller when they were separated by a gaping chasm after she defeated him, much to her own surprise. Though his physical presence was gone, she saw him often in her dreams at night. Nightmares, plaguing her psyche of their battle or of when he would finally catch up and find her. Every night was different. Some nights he won, the searing pain of his blood-red saber carving into her abdomen as her vision went fuzzy and dark and she awoke in a cold sweat, the heat of phantom pain fading from her stomach. Other nights she was victorious, hearing his deep voice yelling in pain and agony as she stabbed her saber into his heart, his eyes flickering out.

Rey still shutters at how excited she gets at the thought of killing Kylo Ren. She has always been quick to fight when needed, but the concept of imagining someone’s death so vividly and _liking it_ is new to her. She isn’t sure if she likes it.

Luke gives Rey a strange look and continues his walk up towards his own shack.

“Will we be training today?” Rey asks hesitantly, and Luke turns, his tired eyes immediately indicating his choice.

“Today just meditate, practice some skills we have not worked on in a few weeks so you don’t get rusty. I have been out all night and need a day to recover and recompose myself.” Without further explanation, he strode into his hut and disappeared.

A twinge of disappointment fills Rey as she hoped to learn new skills, but at the same time, her mind races with anticipation to explore the Force on her own.

After a quick breakfast, Rey hikes to her favorite spot to meditate. Luke showed her his go--to on top of the cliff overlooking the ocean but Rey prefers to be able to feel the salt water licking at her feet as she dives into deep meditation. Along a small sandy beach area Rey discovered while exploring the island, she settles on a large rock that sits right at the edge of the shoreline. It keeps her dry yet allows larger waves to tease her legs from time to time. Plus, the sand makes Rey feel more comfortable after so many years on Jakku.

Rey quickly settles into a meditative state, her mind syncing up with the white noise of the ocean. She first centers herself, imagining her body one with her surroundings. Her fingers and toes become roots, snaking through the moist dirt and reaching deeper and deeper into the ground to establish stability and strength. Her body is the rocky terrain, sloping at sharp, rough angles, yet strong and able to withstand the crashing of waves over and over. Her arms are the inhabitants, plant life and organisms living in the environment. She is the soft grass along the rolling hills and the porgs jumping wildly about along the edge of their nest. Up her neck and to her head, stars, and everything else. Her hair becomes the wind blowing ferociously as a raincloud forms high up the atmosphere, interacting with the grass and whistling among the curvatures of the rocks. Her eyes are the stars, bright and always watching from wherever you are looking. Her mouth is the air, breathable and fulfilling, surrounding all of the atmospheres and encasing it in a thin sheet of gases that mix in perfect unison to power the rest of the planet. This is the Force. This is the power that Rey somehow is sensitive to and is learning to yield. By becoming one with the Force, she can better understand the force. The sense of calm that has come over her is interrupted by a twinge of anger. It stains Rey’s meditative state like a drop of ink on a white sheet. It grows, spreading through the fibers until Rey’s eyes fly open, her chest pumping hard.

_“Scavenger.”_ That voice again. It is stronger this time, and Rey realizes that it isn’t coming from the Island around her but from _within her head_. A sense of terror overtakes her as she closes her eyes again, searching for the source.

_“Well, there you are. You finally figured it out.”_ Ren chuckles in her mind, his feeling of amusement transferring over to her. Her mind is racing, and she thinks back to the last time she felt like this.

The interrogation. After she was kidnapped by Ren and taken back to Star Killer he attempted to force his way into her head. She immediately recognizes the buzzing in the back of her neck and the slight headache that follows, just as it had been when Ren attempted to get the map to Skywalker out of her head. Fear strikes over her as Rey realizes he must still be looking for Skywalker.

_“And you would be correct. I thought I would take advantage of this little Force Bond you have forged and see if I can use it to my advantage,”_ His voice echoes within Rey as she immediately begins putting up any defense in her mind that she can muster.

“Force bond?” Rey replies, transferring her confusion across said bond.

_“You must not have gotten there in the syllabus yet,”_ Ren mocks. Rey can feel his smugness galaxies away. _“Somehow we are linked. I can reach you and you can reach me through the Force. It’s like sending a hologram without actually sending it, you just think about it and send it down the bond. I didn’t do it, so I’m guessing you did it somehow._

“This is the first I’ve ever heard of a Force Bond, so how would I know how to form one!” Rey exclaims in frustration. Though she can no see him, Rey can feel the corners of his mouth pulling in a small smile, as if he is amused by her confusion. She wants to take her saber and burn that smile off his stupid little—

_“That’s a bit sadistic, don’t you think. I didn’t take you as a torture type of girl.”_

Force, he is reading her thoughts and mocking her for it.

“Get out of my head, Ren. I didn’t ask for this and I am not going to tell you anything you are looking for so might as well give up.”

_“Oh Scavenger, I am not one to give up easily. This little bond could work to my advantage. One moment of weakness on your end, and I will find you and we can continue our little sword battle from four months ago, and you will see just I treat those are cocky enough to think they have bested me.”_

“I beat you once, I will beat you again if I need to. Although you will not be finding me to retest this theory. You will only find me if I want you to find me.”

_“Or we will become friends, even lovers through our newly formed intimacy with one another,”_ Sarcasm is laced through his voice.

“In your wet dreams, Sith Scum.” Rey practically screams in her mind, pushing his presence out of her psyche with all the power she can muster. Moments later, the buzzing seizes. Kylo is gone.

 

 

Kylo Ren sits at the foot of his bed, legs crossed in front of him in a meditative pose as he feels his connection to Rey ripped from his grasps and hanging somewhere in the black void of space. He pulls it back within him like a fishing reel, wincing at the pain of the sudden shift.

He has known about this bond between Rey and him for two months. For two months he has spent just a few hours in his spare time testing it, seeing his limits and how close he can get without her knowledge. There have been a few close calls. Some days she would stop midsentence, sensing his presence but not realizing she was. When he finally found out how to manipulate her dreams, he found that she had been thinking a lot about their last encounter. Her nightmares are what initially drew him to discover this bond.

(Two months earlier)

_He is back on Starkiller, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes. Through his blurry vision, he see’s the light of the Scavenger’s lightsaber stalking in front of him. They have hit a lull in their battle, and she is panting with exhaustion and shaking from the pain of the small hits he has managed to land on her. Ren feels the same exhaustion putting putty between his bones and muscles. All he wants to do is to lie down in the snow and sleep, but this girl, as small and unassuming as she seems is not to be underestimated. She landed a few good blows on his good arm, so he has resorted to his alternate hand, causing his technique to be messy and unsatisfactory. This frustrates him immensely._

_Recovered, the Scavenger springs from her position, practically flying towards Ren. Her hair flows half in a bun and half waving wildly in the wind, her eyes fierce and trained directly on him. Kylo has seen this image many times in his dreams. She gets close, singeing the ends of his cloak, but in the end, he runs his blade through her abdomen, watching as the life leaks from her brown eyes._

_This time is different. She does not come directly at him, but shifts directions. The sudden movement throws him off and suddenly he feels a burning through his side. Impossible. Her saber burns at his torso and he screams in pain, swinging his own saber wildly to try and lay a single hit on her._

_“This is not what is supposed to happen.” He screams as he falls to his knees, the girl stepping back to admire her handiwork._

_“You see; I have beaten you once. You have plagued me in my dreams by killing me every night for two months. Now I have once again beaten you and I will continue to defeat you in every dream until we meet again, just so you can know that I have more than luck on my side.”_

Kylo awoke with a start, sweat dripping down his temple and a cramp in his side. The same thought is swimming in his drowsy mind. “You have plagued me in _my_ dreams she said. In her dreams. Yet, for the past two months, her nightmares of dying at his hand have been his nightly vice, a glimpse into what lies in his next battle against the Scavenger. In fact, these dreams have been shared, a mutual effort that explains the reality of the pain that has come through the unconscious mind and into reality upon waking up.

Jumping from his bed, Kylo Ren throws his clothes on and practically runs down to the records room. Aside from flight records and tabs on the Stormtroopers, the records room has a device capable of searching through the archives of old Jedi texts and other documents relating to the Force. It had been a great resource in his training to be able to see the background to many of the skills he learned. It took hours but eventually, Ren left the records room with his answer: A Force Bond. Somehow that wrenched girl and he have formed a connection through the Force that binds them together whether they want it or not.

The information Ren has managed to gain from prodding around the girl’s mind was minimal. In order to be able to see her surroundings, he would have to make his presence aware. She would never let him through. Instead, he has just seen small bits of her thoughts leak over into his mind, as though the bond is like a weak signal. Sometimes they are humorous, like the time the phrase “I am a tree. I am a _tree,”_ interrupted Kylo’s morning meditation. He remembered that time in his own training, trying to figure out how to connect with the Force. Other times, he found himself feeling sympathetic towards the scavenger girl, as much as he hated to admit it to himself. One night, she lay awake, unable to find slumber. He sensed this through the bond, and her own feelings of restlessness kept him awake as well. Suddenly, he felt the overwhelming feeling of emotional pain enter from the bond. The girl was crying, sobbing as she lay alone in her bed. The reason was unknown to Kylo, but he gathered it involved a reason so deeply rooted in her being that these spells of pain came at random. Sparked with curiosity, Kylo reached out through the bond, tapping softly at her protective walls placed in her mind. She had fallen asleep—cried herself to sleep rather—and now her emotions were seeping into her dreams.

Too enticed by the reason for the girl’s pain, as it could be useful to him in the future, Kylo entered her dream, finding himself in the middle of the deserts of Jakku.

 

 

_**Thank you for reading! This is my first star wars fic and I am very excited about continuing it!** _


	2. I.II The Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of I.I, Ren is remembering a dream of Rey's he barged in on.

_“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” the girl’s voice echoes over the desolate hills, and Kylo finds himself turning in circles, looking for its source. He has no idea where he is or where she is, but he does know that his dark garments are too heavy for this environment. Removing his outer layer, he strips to his short-sleeved undershirt, using his heavier shirt to cover his head and mouth from the sand flying rapidly about. The wind picks up, and Ren begins trudging through the wrenched terrain in search of the scavenger. As he climbs to the top of a hill, he spots a large metallic structure just at the bottom of the dune. Through the flying sand he is unable to see exactly what it is, whether it is a hut or a ship or whatever it may be, but with the storm picking up, he decides to take the chance. Stumbling down the steep grade, Kylo stops himself at the back side of the structure, recognizing the distinct shape of an AT-AT lying on its side. From inside of the AT-AT, he can sense movement and guesses that he has found the girl. The movement turns into crashing and screaming and by instinct Kylo begins running around the structure to find an opening. He stops in the doorway—if you could call it that—to find the girl splayed out on the floor, her head in her hands and a mushy piece of what must be food smeared across the sandy ground. His eyes move towards the home the scavenger has made. Upon the wall he sees rows and rows of tick marks carved meticulously into the wall. There look to be hundreds. The entire living space is small in general, a gathering of scrap pieces of cloth for a bed and a section that looks to be some sort of makeshift kitchen. When his eyes return to where the girl sat on the ground, she is gone._

_“What are you doing here?” The voice has moved behind him, and he quickly turns to find the girl standing in an attack position, a long staff pointed threateningly at his throat. Her eyes are red and puffy from crying, and the wet streams from her tears are still visible digging through the layer of dust upon her face, but nonetheless, she looks fierce and angry with his presence._

_Kylo could Force blast her a hundred feet away and escape. He could pull his own weapon and turn this already sad dream into a nightmare. Instead, he raises his hands in surrender. Her eyebrows raise in surprise._

_“You didn’t answer my question,” she says again, lowering her staff but still remaining in the ready position._

_“I don’t know. I just—ended up here.” Kylo replies, leaving out the part where he deliberately entered her dreams._

_“You don’t belong here. This is not your place to poke around.”_

_“What’s wrong?” Kylo changes the subject, hoping to get something out of her. Her eyes squeeze shut for a slight second, and he senses she is trying not to start crying again._

_“I just dropped my dinner. Nothing is wrong.” She replies, now lowering her staff altogether and strolling back into the AT-AT. As Kylo steps in to relieve himself of the now raging sandstorm, she throws him a dark glance. She wants him to leave, not stay and make himself a cup of tea._

_“I can’t leave in these conditions. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me until this storm passes.” He states, sitting against the wall as she stands across from him, leaning against the kitchen counter._

_“Funny, I don’t recall inviting you to stay.”_

_“You wouldn’t let someone go out in that horrible storm would you?”_

_He plays at the light in her, the inherent good she has deep down. She sighs in defeat, adverting her eyes from his. From across the room, he can hear the low rumble of her stomach. For the first time, Kylo takes a good look at the girl and realizes just how_ thin _she is. Though her Jakku garb is thick and baggy, he can make out the sharp edges of her ribs poking at the sides, her angular limbs and the way her cheeks are approaching the classification of sunken. Her eyes have dark circles around them, probably from the rumbling of her stomach waking her through the night._

_“That was the last of your food wasn’t it?” Kylo exclaims, gesturing to the mush on the ground, now dissolving into the sand. She looks at him with a look of desperation._

_“I earned a full portion today, it’s the most I’ve gotten in weeks for one turn-in. And as soon as I finish preparing it, I trip over a stone and it goes flying. I’m angry at myself for my clumsiness, but”_

_“But you’re sadder that you have to even deal with this type of situation in the first place.” Kylo finishes her sentence and her eyebrows narrow suspiciously._

_“You know nothing about me, Kylo Ren.” She growls defensively._

_“I don’t need to know you to know that when you’re feeling broken, the only way to keep going, to not be crushed under it all, is to blame others--your friends, your parents, the galaxy-- instead of letting it all weigh on your shoulders.”_

_The girl is silent, and Kylo is surprised at himself for how much he is able to relate to her. They are enemies, dreaming of the next moment to kill each other, but at this moment they are in a truce of shared experience. This is not what Ren expected to find when he went digging around the girl’s dreams._

_“Get out.” She says quietly, looking at him fiercely once again. Her hand is on her staff and she begins pointing at his chest. “I don’t need you in my head. You belong to whatever hell you come from, so do me a favor and crawl back there.”_

_Her anger was sudden and explosive, and Kylo did not feel like feeding it, only to end up with a stabbing pain in his chest when he awoke. He pulls himself to a standing position and backs out of the fallen AT-AT. She follows him until he is a few yards away from the entrance, and she observes him as he pushes through the wind and sand, disappearing over the horizon._

Kylo awoke that morning with a feeling he had never felt towards a person who had tried to kill him just a few months prior. Empathy.

 

“Rey.” The familiar voice of her master rings in her ears, pulling her out of her meditation. She opens her eyes to see Luke standing a few feet away, his eyes still filled with exhaustion but he seems better than earlier. She stands and bows out of respect for his superior status. “I learned of an important task for you last night. I have meditated on it and I feel as though you are ready for this.”

“Really?” She practically squeals in excitement, then quickly collecting herself and calming her giddiness.

“The Resistance has received a transmission from the planet of Mortis in Wild Space. They are not an associated part of either the Resistance or the First Order, but they are requesting help from us. The general wants you to go, and I agree because of the strange circumstances of this specific planet.”

“Strange circumstances?” Rey questions, not ever hearing of this planet or much of “Wild Space” in general.

“Wild Space is the area beyond the Outer Rim. It is scarcely charted on regular maps. During the Clone Wars, there existed three Force users on this planet. They called them The Father, The Daughter, and The Son. They were the example of how to balance the light and dark side of the force. They tried to convince my father that of his great potential to also yield power to both of the sides in perfect balance, but the dark seduced him too much. From what I have gathered, they are dead now, but Mortis is still an area that is active in the Force.” Luke explains, his expression becoming especially pained at the mention of his father. Rey knows the legend of Anakin Skywalker and can’t help but feel for Luke knowing what it feels like to grow up without knowing who his parents are.

“We have intel that Kylo Ren plans to go to Mortis and yield its power for some sort of New Order scheme. Though we would like to send a squadron there, it is extremely dangerous for those who are not Force-sensitive to go. The inhabitants are unknown in general, but it has been documented that they are strong with the Force.”

Nervous pressure builds in Rey’s chest at the mention of Kylo. His presence has been more and more bothersome to her since she learned of their supposed Force bond. He had tried to sneak into her mind twice already that morning but she managed to put up enough mental walls to keep him at bay. It was like he was toying with her, not truly looking for anything but just trying to annoy her with his constant buzzing. Force, how she wanted to kick his ass again…

“I believe you have advanced well in your training, and though I would like for you to be more prepared and comfortable with the Force, you are strong and have good instincts. I also believe so much can be taught while most will come naturally through experience.”

“Thank you, Master Luke,” Rey replies with a contained smile, satisfied in his confidence in her. A swell of excitement begins to invade her chest as she giddily is dismissed from her master to prepare for her departure.

Rey hurries back to her home and begins throwing together the essentials she will need: extra clothes, some leftover rations, some of her notes from training, and of course, her borrowed saber and trusty staff from Jakku. Luke had alluded to the upcoming event of Rey constructing her own lightsaber, but for now her borrowed weapon would do. She throws it into a small knapsack and begins trudging over to where she parked the _Millennium Falcon_. Luke was waiting for her when she arrived at the ship. He gives Rey an approving look and she boards the ship, giddy for her mission, yet a spot of nervousness at seeing Ren again is unmistakably present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave any feedback you may want to give me :) The first few chapters will be shorter but I promise they will get longer!


	3. I.III Mortis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously...  
> Rey has been tasked with going to Mortis to find Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren felt actual human empathy for Rey and it scares the crap out of him. 
> 
> In this chapter...   
> Rey reaches Mortis and we find out what Kylo Ren has been up to and what happens when their paths cross.

Kylo Ren hates being given orders, especially when they are given to him by Hux. He should be the one giving others missions, not receiving them. Yet, here he is, on a planet in the literal middle of nowhere—which is saying something in the midst of space—looking for a person that he has no idea is even here. The Force is strong with Mortis, there is no doubt about that. He can feel it engulfing him, pumping through his body, yet it has made the task of seeking out someone through their Force signature next to impossible. For two standard days, he has made his way through the strange landscape of Mortis. Where he landed, it was flat, an open grassy field with nothing on the horizon. For as small a planet as it appeared, the nothingness seemed to go on for miles and miles. Ren decided it was best to move his ship to better cover and eventually found a nice space in the midst of a patch of extremely tall, thick forest to house his ship. He then set off, following his instincts to lead him towards his target. However, after hours of walking this wrenched planet, he feels more and more tempted to just abandon the plan and claim the girl got away.

Why is it so important he comes to find her anyways? The scavenger is nothing but a newborn Force-user, powerful but in no way able to utilize that power. When he was given word that she had been sent on a mission to Mortis to employ the help of the locals—who are rumored to be powerful with the Force-- to the Resistance, he was annoyed that Hux even found this to be a threat. The inhabitants of Mortis have never been cooperative or interested in getting involved in the issues of other galaxies since the deaths of The Father, Daughter and Son. However, at the back of his mind, Kylo fears that with the girl’s strength with the Force, he could foresee the locals possibly listening to her…

A buzzing at the back of his head causes Kylo to stop in his tracks. The scavenger is reaching out through their bond. She has not made any contact or even allowed him to come near her for almost a week, and now her walls are suddenly broken through. Kylo closes his eyes to feel the pull of their bond and realizes that she is close. His walk breaks into a light-footed run as the bond feels stronger and stronger. Soon he reaches the outskirts of a clearing, coming to a silent stop behind the trunk of an enormous tree.

She is standing in the middle of the clearing, slowly turning as if she is waiting for him to come from any direction. He finds it strange, that she is practically beckoning him to her location when he is tasked with finding her, but he puts it off as her not being able to control her use of the Force in an environment that is so strong. She must be overwhelmed by it all, as even Kylo feels strangely fatigued from it as well. Ren finally appears in the clearing, pulling out his saber but not activating it just yet. The girl immediately spots him, activating her saber and training her eyes on him in a deadly gaze.

“What a coincidence I find you here,” Kylo says humorously, still keeping his saber at his side to demonstrate just how unintimidating she is to him. He can feel her frustration with him already leaking through the bond, and it fuels his prideful strut.

“Why have you come here?” She asks, and Kylo chuckles, the noise sounding more like radio crackles through his mask.

“You didn’t think you could sway the inhabitants of Mortis to the Rebellion did you? Is General Organa really that pressed for support that she is venturing out into Wild Space to find help for this cause?”

She looks confused, deactivating her saber and holding it down at her side just as he is.

“No, I’m here to stop _you_ from tapping into the Force of this planet for First Order uses.”

Now Kylo is perplexed, a sickening feeling beginning to rise in the pit of his stomach, though he is not sure if it is himself feeling it or the girl who has a worried expression across her face as well.

“Nonetheless,” Kylo tries to pursue on, figuring this is all a trick to disarm him, and employs his saber, “I believe we have some catching up to do, Scavenger.”

She also activates her saber and they stand at a distance from one another for a few moments, the buzz of their sabers echoing through the trees. The girl takes a small step forward and Ren takes that as enough of a move to allow him to charge. He practically flies at her, swiping his saber down with incredible force. She hastily dodges him, spinning around to catch his blade against hers. They clash for a few moments until he goes to jab at her but she is too quick, sliding out of the way and pressing her saber into the side of Kylo’s thigh. He swallows a cry and uses the pain to center himself and launch a fake and hit to her right shoulder. It barely grazes her but through their bond he can feel the residual pain, knowing that he at least harmed her. She gasps at the contact, but her eyes narrow with determination as she steps back and launches a rapid Force blow, throwing Ren a few feet back onto his knees in surprise. She takes this opportunity of his lack of height over her to charge him. He quickly pulls himself back to his feet to take on the oncoming storm that is the small Scavenger racing towards him when suddenly, out of nowhere, she stops dead in her tracks. She is frozen mid run, and Kylo pauses in confusion, as he was not the one to freeze her.

“What in the hell is—“ she is silenced with a gasp as her saber drops to the ground and deactivates. As Kylo attempts to step forward to retrieve it from her he finds himself in the same frozen state as she. Anger rises in his throat as he whips his head around looking for the source. The girl looks just as annoyed. From the other side of the clearing there is a rustling in in the shrubs and then the world turns dark.

              A pounding headache greets Ren as his eyes flutter open. He does not remember going to sleep or why is is lying on what feels like the hard floor of his ship… As he gains his vision everything floods his brain. The freezing, the attack, the darkness, and Ren jumps up from the ground in an immediate state of attack.

              Shackles on his wrists stop him from succeeding in standing all the way up, and he is roughly thrown back onto the ground. At that moment he also notices he is without his helmet or his saber, which only furthers his annoyance. Soft chuckles fill his ears and his eyes gaze up through the transparent material before him to see the girl sitting on the ground a few yards from him in a prison cell of three opaque walls with a third wall clear just as the one he is in. She is too shackled on her wrists but it seems she has been awake slightly longer than his.

“Where are we?” He asks, pushing himself into a sitting position and pushing a piece of his dark matted hair behind his ear.

“Holding cells it seems,” she replies, glancing around the otherwise empty area. “I have a feeling we were set up to be captured.”

“Wow, what a surprising assumption, I applaud you on your deductive skills,” Ren retorts with sarcasm lacing his words, earning him a classic death glare from the scavenger.

“Don’t mock me when you’re in the exact same situation as I am.”

“Not for long,” Kylo grins, closing his eyes and concentrating on the bindings. His mind races through the structure of the shackles and finds the place where a key would fit. Using the Force, he constructs in his mind a key to fit the hole and unlock him from these restraints. He hears a click in his mind and opens his eyes to revel in his handiwork—but as he looks down upon the shackles, they remain fixed in place on his wrists.

“I tried that twenty minutes ago. They seem to be made specifically to block our use of the Force on them,” The girl states in a bored tone, but he can feel the stress she is exhibiting through their bond.

“Dammit. Who the hell is doing this and why?” Kylo demands, his anger pulsing through him so hard he can feel his heartbeat in all parts of his body. The girl’s eyes narrow at him and he knows that she can feel it too and it is affecting her calm Jedi state of mind.

“Relax, no good is going to come from overreacting, although I know that is your specialty.”

“I do not overreact,”

“Then why are you recalling the time you destroyed an entire room out of frustration of losing a Resistance fleet?”

Kylo was indeed thinking about that time as he was scolded by Snoke for his irrational temper.

“Get the hell out of my head, Scavenger,” he growls, angrier at himself for not immediately detecting her presence sifting through his thoughts.

“A lot of people have anger issues all across the galaxies. All you need is some support—“ her bad-mannered teasing is interrupted by a door hissing open from one end of the room they inhabit. Through the door comes a tall human figure. He looks to be about Ren’s height, with a lanky figure clothed in a strange wrapping of faded green garb. His hair is long and platinum blonde, slicked back so that it reaches his shoulders at a point that had to take a lot of product to achieve. His eyes are the truly chilling feature he has, with an icy blue-gray color in one eye and a dark, almost ink black color in his left. He stares Kylo down, his downturned lips in a permeant frown twitching at the corners as if he is trying to show his satisfaction towards the capture of his prisoners.

“Welcome to Mortis,” The man’s voice is unexpectedly low and deep, feeling more like vibrations than real words if that is even possible.

“Why have you captured us?” The girl cuts to the chase immediately, asking in a deadpan.

“We will get to that, young Rey of Jakku.” The girl’s eyebrows raise at the mention of what must be her name.

Kylo finally knows her name.

The man’s attention turns towards Kylo.

“And what name should I refer to you as, Kylo Ren as you have taken, or Ben, your given name?”

Ren sees red at the mention of his previous name. This man should not know of his past and will not reveal it to this lowly girl either.

“Kylo Ren is my name. Ben is dead.” He growls in a low tone, hoping that Rey is not able to hear him. The curious expression in her eye tells him otherwise.

“Whatever you insist, _Kylo Ren_.”

“What is your name?” Rey asks suddenly turning the man’s attention back to the small figure crouched in the cell across from Kylo’s.

“I am Eleo. Though I would love to stay and discuss the details of your switch I must be getting Rey here to see my Master. He has much to discuss with her.”

Fear flashes through the bond and Kylo looks at Rey to see that she is stirring with nervous energy, probably plotting how to fight her way out of this. Eleo waves his hand over the door of the cell and it whisks open with a gentle hiss. He approaches Rey and unshackles her without even touching the restraints, and for a moment, Kylo can see her mind preparing to jab at Eleo. He senses this first, and freezes her arm as it winds up into a punch.

“Now, now, we wouldn’t want to start trouble so early. It will only make things harder.” The tall man insists, placing a hand on the small of Rey’s back and pushing her forward. She obediently walks towards the door, throwing glances at Ren as she is led out of the room, leaving him alone.

Kylo’s mind is spinning, trying to comprehend what is happing. Both he and the scavenger have been captured, but for what reason? Who is doing this and why? It can’t be the Resistance or the First Order since they were both sure of their intelligence about the other as he sensed true confusion from Rey at his earlier mention of his reasoning for coming to Mortis. It made no sense.

A buzzing erupts from the back of his neck and Kylo can feel the bond opening wide. She is letting him in to get a look at what is happening. He sends her a signal of appreciation in which she does not acknowledge back. They are enemies in all respects, but they both know that in this moment they are both in trouble against a common enemy other than each other. It hurts for Kylo to even have to think about teaming up with the insipid scavenger girl, but so long as they both are willing to truce until they find out how to escape, he knows it is the best option for survival.

Through the bond he can feel her thoughts racing through her mind. They come at such rapid paces, he almost struggles to keep up.

_“Eleo is only the henchman and he is strong… how strong in the Force must be his Master? I can already feel his power, or is it that I have been too weakened and it is just comparatively strong… What could they possibly want with me… How are Ren and I both important together… This hallway is ominously long… It’s colder, so much colder. Why is it so cold? Why must all the bad situations I get in involve some sort of freezing temperature, for once can I get stranded in a desert where I can actually function…Oh no, oh no, oh no ohnoohno…”_

Silence. For a moment he fears it has broken, indicating her death, in which case Ren’s outlook is also not good. However, the faint thrumming he feels when he reaches out to her assures him she is still alive, but for whatever reason blocking him out.

Ren’s answer to why this is come in bursts of agonizing pain.

One moment he is concentrating on staying in tune with his hold on the Force, not to let it slip his grasp, and the next he is doubled over, panic spreading throughout him. This is not his pain though, as he can hear the groans Rey is exuding through the bond. As soon as it begins, it stops, and Rey has regained her mental defenses.

Kylo lies breathless on the floor of his cell. Whatever they are doing to her, she isn’t letting it get through the bond, even though he knows that must take an enormous amount of strength to maintain that alone. Another burst of pain and nausea flashes through him and like the first time it quickly subsides. Part of him wants to reach and tell her that he will take the pain so she can concentrate on keeping whoever is doing this out of her head. A more insistent part of him urges that he needs as much strength as he can get.

 

Eleo leads Rey down an endless hallway after forcing her out of her cell. At her last glance at Ren, she could almost see worry in his eyes, though it was most likely for his own sake and not her own.

Her mind is running ramped with theories and thoughts. She can feel Ren in the back of her head but she allows him to listen to her thought process, as they both are in the same situation so might as well use the bond to their advantage. Perhaps this will be taken as a sign of good faith and convince Ren to team up with her to escape this place… though, that is a far fetched notion.

Rey eyes Eleo, wondering how he can be so powerful. A great fear slips into her mind and shivers run down her spine. If Eleo is this powerful, how much more will his master be?

“Who is your master?” She asks Eleo, who glances at her with his dark eye, but does not respond right away. They walk in silence, the only noise coming from the sound of Rey’s bare feet on the cold metal floor.  She mentally curses the fact that every time Rey ends up somewhere the climate is freezing cold. Though while on the surface of Mortis the temperature was comfortable, she regrets only having her arm wraps as the thickest fabric on her body…

Though, Rey thinks, the comparison of Eleo’s power could be faulty due to the sudden impairment of Rey’s own use of the Force. If she is somehow inhibited in her powers, or his are heightened in this environment, then their discrepancies are less impressive.

“Do you know the origins of this place?” Eleo asks suddenly. She finds it strange for him to be attempting to give a history lesson when all Rey wants to know what is her purpose in this grand scheme… in which case, how is Kylo Ren also involved?

“It is a planet that is special with the Force. Three Force-wielders once inhabited it but they are dead now.”

“That is the basics, yes. Although, I am not sure I would refer to Mortis as a planet. It is only a planet when it needs to be.

After the death of The Father, the Daughter, and the Son by Skywalker and Kenobi so many years ago, Mortis was in balance. Some other Force-sensitive beings from around the galaxy began to begin migrate here because of the wars, causing a sway in the direction of the balance. What is commonly misinterpreted about Mortis is it is not just inhabited by the Force, but it _is_ the Force. This entire place is a realm beyond the natural world that was designed as a balance. When Mortis is in homeostasis, the universe and the Force throughout the universe is also so. However, whenever Mortis finds itself off kilter, things tend to get bad.”

“Mortis is off balance,” Rey whispers to herself, and Eleo nods in agreement.

“Mortis is indeed in a state of disunity. The population has split in to factions over the discrepancy in the Force. Those who identify with the light side have formed a group against those who are with the dark side. Those who utilities both have also become a separate entity, and of course there are the extremists of both sides, who have sought out to murder the others, taking the matter of rebalance into their own hands. It is chaos and the opposite intention of opening up this place to Force-users to have haven.”

“Why are we here, then. There is nothing we can do for you to fix this.” Rey comments and Eleo’s lips twitch as if he is trying to smile. His inability to is even more unsettling.

“You are special, Rey of Jakku. So is your brooding friend Kylo Ren. You both are extremely strong in the Force, which is what made it so hard to get you here. We have been drawing you here for months and months, but with the battles going on, we have been unsuccessful.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, why are we here?”

They reach the end of the hallway and a door slides open. The freezing nature of the hallway is immediately shifted by a wall of intense heat. Molten lava lies mere yards in front of her, though closer sits a chair almost similar to the one Kylo kept her in when he kidnapped her to the Starkiller.

Oh no. The reason for all of this began to click. Rey is strong with the Force, more than she can still comprehend, but she is and it is light. Ren is also powerful but with the dark side of the force. Together, they are the mixture for balance. Balance that Eleo and his master so desperately want to achieve. He is trying to make them the new Son and Daughter of Mortis.

A dark figure appears from an entrance way on the far side of the platform. Eleo locks Rey into the restraints and leaves through the door they came through. Rey can feel his power pulling her to him, and it is painful to be held back by these restraints for it. She quickly reminds herself to put up her mental defenses so that Ren can not be apart of whatever will happen. Rey does not know why, she feels the need to protect him from the pain.

“Rey, my dear.” The figure says, and the voice is that of a woman. She steps into the glow of the lava, and Rey is instantly taken aback with her appearance. She looks elderly, her long hair white and flowing to the middle of her back in gentle waves. Wrinkles cover her face and exposed skin. She has a simple gray wrap garb on that tightly bonds to her limbs and a poncho-looking fabric covering her torso down to her mid thighs of the same shade of gray. She is beautiful yet grotesque and Rey can not decide what to make of her.

“Who are you,” Rey demands, and the woman smiles. Unlike Eleo, her smile is actually warm and seems genuine. It terrifies Rey.

“You can call me Mother.”

              Of course. Father, Daughter, Son, and _Mother_.

              Mother approaches Rey’s chair, observing her closely. Her chocolate brown eyes run up and down her body, just as her previous boss would look at the things she scavenged before offering her the ration of the day. Rey is not just a part she picked off a crashed Star Destroyer, though.

              “You are frightened. Why are you scared, girl?” Mother asks, laying a hand on Rey’s cheek. She flinches at the contact, though Mother’s hands are soft and welcoming in a strange way.

              “I did not come here to fix your civil war that is breaking out. I can be no help to you.”

              “That is not why you are scared, that is what you keep telling yourself to keep your mind from shutting down. Because you know that you can help us. Because you also know that you must die a slow painful death in order for this to be accomplished. But fret not, young Rey,”

              Rey’s mind begins to spin as her vision goes blurry. She was drugged, or the Mother is doing something to affect her consciousness.

              “This will hurt, but it is only the beginning. We must test to see just how strong you are and how much we will have to suck out of you to satisfy our needs.”

              Pain. Excruciating pain ripples through Rey’s body as if her veins were injected with fire and her muscles were turned to cement. She can not move or breath or even muster the strength to make noise more than a faint groan. Her head feels as if she is being hit repeatedly in the temples with a thousand light sabers, burning into her brain and frying all sense of life out of her. Every so often, she can feel her grasp on the Force slipping, and it reminds her that she is still in the fight. Rey concentrates as best she can through the burning all through her body and forces herself to find her hold of her power once again. She loses it maybe four or five times before she finds herself face down on the ground of the platform, the heat of the lava below her beginning to scald her face.

              “You are even more powerful than I could have imagined, Rey.” The Mother says staring down at her. Rey still can not find the strength to move besides turning her head slightly to look up at the woman in gray.

              “I—I will not be yo—your—your sacrifice to balance out Mortis,”

              The Mother leans in close, pressing her finger underneath Rey’s nose and a thumb to her ear. When she takes her fingers away, there is the deep maroon of thick blood on her fingers, and Rey is suddenly aware of the feeling of liquid oozing down the front and side of her face.

              “Oh dear, you do not have much of a choice do you?”

 

              Darkness was followed by a bright light penetrating through Rey’s slumber. Her eyes slowly open, adjusting to the light as she allows them to unhinge. The first thing she see’s is Kylo sitting in the cell directly across from her, his eyes wide.

              “You’re alive?” He says, almost in disbelief. Rey glances down at the floor beneath her to see she’s been lying in a puddle of her own blood. It has dried, so she had been lying there for quite awhile.

              “I suppose I am,” She replies, holding her head in her hand tightly as a massive headache surges through her.

              “You’ve been lying motionless for six hours. Eleo brought you in covered in your own blood and bruises. I didn’t know if you were dead and meant to intimidate me or alive and meant to recount the horrid details of your torture when you arose. Either way, I do admit, I am curious of what has happened since I did not get taken back.”

              However, Rey does not feel curiosity through the force bond. She feels fear. Like Ren puts on a mask to hide his face, he sets his face in a fixed blank stare to hide the fact that he scared.

              _“Can you not infiltrate my head right now and tell me what happened?”_ His voice sounds in Rey’s head as she flashes her an expression of annoyance.

              “Let me show you.” Rey says quietly, and closes her eyes. Immediately the light pressure of Ren’s presence in her mind appears and she concentrates on illustrating her memories as vividly as she can. She pictures the hallway leading into the lava room. She recalls the image of the Mother approaching her and their brief conversation explaining Rey and Ren’s purpose. Painfully, she quickly goes through the agony that she experienced, and can feel Ren’s anger building throughout. When she finally opens her eyes, Kylo is clenching his fists so tight his knuckles appear as white as the bland surroundings.

              “You have GOT to be kidding me. How did we fall into this trap so easily? How did nobody realize it was a scheme, too good to be true? I knew it made no sense, but yet I walked right into it anyways…” He is yelling, his cheeks flushed red with anger. Rey turns away, not wanting to look at him during his tantrum. The heat of his temper makes her uncomfortable at times as it reminds her of how bad he wants to kill her and how powerful he is with his pent up emotions.

              “Rey,” His voice is suddenly calm and toned down. She looks up at him in surprise. He is sitting on his knees with his palm up against the glass. His eyes are boring into her with serious intensity. She did not realize he knew her name, and it sounded like a dirty word coming from his mouth, but that was an issue to deal with later. “You know what we need to do right?”

She nods glumly. “It’s the only way to get out of this. We can put aside our differences until we manage to escape, unite against a threat that will take us both away from our homes.”

He nods back in agreement, staring down at his knees.

“How are we supposed to escape a place that _is_ the Force without using the Force or any weapons?” Rey asks in a small voice, the overwhelming reality of it all crashing down on her. A similar feeling of panic comes across the Force Bond from Kylo as well.

 

He doesn’t even know what to do.

 

They sit in silence, neither one making a move or allowing a thought to cross over to the other. Rey soon slips in to a meditative state that turns into a restless sleep. Ren chooses to stay awake, his eyes bloodshot from the lack of rest he has gotten and the stress he is under. When he views Rey beginning to toss and turn indicating a nightmare, he lies down reminded of his own exhaustion, and slips into a deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it has been so long, I just got back to school and it has taken me a good two weeks to really get settled. My planned schedule is to post every Sunday with maybe a few early updates if I'm feeling particularly giddy for a new chapter. Thanks for reading!


	4. I.IV Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously...  
> Ren and Rey get captured on Mortis as they fell into a trap set by some deranged locals. 
> 
> In this chapter...  
> Ren learns some interesting facts about Rey and the pair takes a field trip.

_Waves crash against the rocky cliffside, awaking Kylo from a light slumber on the rocky surface. His eyes flutter open and he can see a figure standing at the edge of the cliff, staring over the edge. Her beige sash is whipping wildly behind her, and Ren can already see that she has thrown her cloth boots aside and is beginning to strip off her loose garb. All the remains are a sleeveless dirty white shirt and beige pants that end just below the knee. She throws her arm bands to the side, and for the first time Ren can see her forearms and why she wears the cloth—besides protection against the Jakku weather. Scars run vertically, horizontally, diagonally—in all directions—up and down her arms. Some are deeper than others, forming small valleys along her smooth skin and others have built up mounds of scar tissue. Rey turns around, looking at Kylo and then following his gaze to her battered arms._

_“They say there is a story behind every scar. For me, scars are lessons.”_

_She approaches Ren, taking a swift seat in front of him. She points to a scar running horizontally along the base of her wrists. It’s deep and he knows immediately that it had to have cut into her artery._

_“This one taught me to listen. It doesn’t matter how alone I think I am, some people can be quiet and ruthless. I began working in the space that he wanted. I had no idea. He was quiet and I was careless. He swiped my wrists and left me to die. I stripped off pieces of my sash to hold myself together and stuffed my wrists with sand to stop the bleeding. It took me two weeks to find the courage to go back out to scavenge, but I was running out of food and it had to be done. I never let anyone sneak up on me again.”_

_She takes Kylo’s hand and runs it along an especially long scar on her right arm. The pale white of the scar tissue jetted downward from her elbow around her arm to her thumb. He had noticed the discoloration on her hand before, but never paid much attention to it._

_“This one taught me to get through life fairly. I was twelve, and after a bout with a violent illness that left me incapacitated for several days, I was too weak to scavenge but too desperate to lie down and die. I snuck into the home of a well-known scavenger who has a known build up of rations. He should have been out at that time, but as I was leaving with just one full ration, enough to sustain me for a few days and not enough that he would ever notice, he caught me with a long knife as I fled from his home. In a moment of weakness, I learned that my life is my own and I can not take shortcuts to sustain myself. I also began carrying a staff at this time in case of run ins with others, as I was not the first scavenger to try and steal from another of my kind.”_

_She releases his fingers and points at a smaller scar running vertically along the side of her left wrist. It is raised and still a tad bit pink along the edges. This one is relatively new._

_“I obtained this one from you. When we were fighting there upon Starkiller, I was backed against the edge of death. You offered to teach me the ways of the force. You remember this instance well I presume. You gave me this scar right before that moment, and I can still feel the burn of you saber to this day. I need that burn though. This scar taught me that I am more than just a scavenger on Jakku. I have power and strength that I never could have imagined were real until I was thrust into this world. I am not just the girl that was left by her parents anymore, I have a purpose to use my good to help others that is everything I could have wanted after spending so long only being able to care for myself. Kylo Ren, as much as I have spent my nights cursing your name and the fact that I had to ever meet you, I also have to recognize that you are the reason I stopped sitting on a planet of sand waiting for a future that wasn’t going to come and started creating my own future.”_

_He is stunned by this, and is unable to formulate a proper sentence in reply but she just nods in understanding. She rises, giving one last drawn out look at Kylo before turning her back to him and walking back towards the edge of the cliff._

_And then she keeps walking until her bare feet cease stepping on the rocky terrain and begin kicking rapidly through the open air._

_“Rey!” Kylo screams, scrambling up from his seat on the ground and peering over the edge. Through the Force Kylo can sense the ruthless currents and relentless waves in the angry sea below, and he is unable to find Rey among the chaos of the natural world below him. His rationality leaves him and suddenly he is jumping off the cliff after her. The water rushes to meet him faster than he expected and he is thrust into the deep sea as the air in his lungs is forced out from the impact. He instinctively reaches into his pocket and finds the small device to put between his lips and give him a few minutes of air. Using this he begins paddling under the water, the strong currents pulling him in random directions. She is nowhere. He reaches out through their bond, looking everywhere for her signature. All he receives in return is a faint thrum of what feels like a fading heartbeat._

              _Kylo tries to dive deeper but the pressure building in his chest tells him the search is over and she is gone. His hands move through the water like he’s pulling himself through sand. As Ren resurfaces he can see the shoreline about fifty yards from where he treads. Lying limply on the shore is a mass of wet beige—Rey._

_He begins swimming as fast as he possibly can, his heart racing with adrenaline. He soon reaches her and trudges up onto the beach where she lies. Her face is whiter than the sand and has a slight twinge of blue to it. The water has turned her hair into a sickly shade of dark brown that does not look right jetting across her features. He pushes a tuft of hair from over here eyes to behind her ear and feels her move ever so slightly._

_“Rey,” he practically yells, tapping on her shoulders rapidly. She stirs slightly under his touch, and he can tell her breath is getting caught in her throat. By instinct he rolls her onto her side and the result is immediate—the water that was caught in her lungs comes surging out in heavy coughs. When she seems to be finished she rolls back on her back, her eyes bright red and irritated from the saltwater, but they are open. He can feel her pulse grow stronger as she continues to lie there._

_“What the hell are you thinking? You could have died; I doubt you ever learned how to swim living on fucking Jakku.” Ren is filled with a mixture of rage and relief at the girl, and holds her by the sides of her shoulders, as if he was going to shake her but instead he cradles her gently, his anger subsiding._

_“I—I was testing a theory,” She says in a groggy state, her eyes searching his face for a reaction._

Loud tapping interrupts his slumber as Kylo Ren jolts awake. He is not on a beach anymore and Rey is not lying limp in his lap. She now sits up against the wall in her own cell facing his, tapping her finger on the walls of her cell to get his attention. She looks annoyed.

“You snore, you know that right?” she says rolling her eyes, and Ren, still dazed by what had happened in his dream, doesn’t reply. He wonders if she had the same dream or if tonight this was just within his own mind. He tries to reach out and see if she happens to be thinking about what she was tossing and turning over before he too went to sleep, but she blocks him instantly.

“Can we not do this right now; I hardly have the energy to manage your nosiness. Eleo came in this morning. I sensed his presence and woke up but he did not notice. He was particularly interested in you for some reason, I could not tell what he was doing.”

Ren’s interest in her dreams suddenly subsides as his brain switches to anger that he did not sense Eleo’s presence and left himself so vulnerable. A twinge of annoyance that the untrained mind of the scavenger felt Eleo bubbles in the corner of his mind.

 _“I have had some training you know, no need to mock me.”_ She sends across their bond, and he mentally hits himself for allowing her to hear it.

“I thought we weren’t doing this right now,” Kylo comments. Rey was lazily tracing the scratches on her cell wall with her finger as far as it would let her.

“You’re the one that said it in my head, I wasn’t prodding at your mind this time.”

“This time?”

She looked back at him and gave him an unamused look. “Don’t try and act like you don’t use the bond to poke around my thoughts, so obviously I have done the same, not that I really get very far anyways.”

Kylo feels a slight pulling at the corners of his mouth in amusement. “You know, dream Rey is a lot nicer to me than reality Rey.” He says carelessly, immediately regretting it from the face she gives him.

“So you dream about me?” She asks with a sly smirk, “And I’m _nice_ to you? It’s a good thing all dreams don’t come true.”

“Don’t I end up in some of your dreams?” he asks knowingly, hoping to move away from his own embarrassment but her smirk remains.

“Well sometimes, but usually it ends with me killing you so I wouldn’t say our subconscious are on the same wavelength.”

He signs, ready to retort but the hissing of the door opening interrupts his thought process. Eleo.

 

 

Kylo opened his mouth as if to refute Rey’s snappy comment but he was quickly interrupted by a less than anticipated visitor. Eleo strolled in, throwing a glance at Rey before turning on his heels to stand in the middle and see both of his prisoners.

“Good morning, I hope you both slept well because we have some work to do today,” Eleo practically chirped, which was a strange sound coming from a man as horrid as Eleo. I will have my assistants come in and lead you to the site, and you will await further instruction there.”

He begins to leave but stops with his back to both of the cells. “I also hope that you both behave and do not attempt to escape. There _will_ be severe consequences if that is the case, rest assured.” The door whisks open and he disappears into the dark hallway.

“This is our chance,” Ren says, his deep voice even lower as he tried to keep quiet. “If they are taking us out then we may get an opening to get ourselves out of this.”

While Rey knows that may be a possibility, these people are more powerful than either of them can comprehend. While Kylo and Rey can be trained to understand the Force, these people have been born into it.

“It has to be a solid window though. We can’t take the chance of a messy escape.”

“Escapes are messy, scavenger. Sometimes you have to go out on a whim to make things happen.” Kylo’s face turns dark as if he is recalling from personal experience. “Was using the Force on the Stormtroopers on Starkiller not going out on a whim?”

He has a point there, but Rey still feels that something isn’t quite right. Why would they be taken from their cell, out of a controlled environment, with the risk of them to escape if they are supposedly so important?

Rey feels the buzzing of Ren’s presence. _“It is a valid point, but we can’t just allow them to play with us without at least trying to fight back,”_ His words echo in her mind. He does not sound as angry or annoyed as he looks but calm and understanding of her reservations.

“So we are going to work together to get out of this?” Rey asks slowly, and Kylo’s eyes are brimmed with a swirling pool of emotions. She is unable to read what he is feeling about this plan.

“We resolve to a truce for the purposes of escaping Mortis, and this extends as long as it takes to get back to our respective bases. I can’t have you trying to kill me on the ship away from here.”

Rey is glad he has included that as part of their truce because she too worried about the implications of if they would have to fly out of here on the same ship.

              “It is a deal then.”

 

They sit in a semi-comfortable silence for a couple minutes until the door once again opens and in walks two armored figures. It is impossible to tell what species they are because of their get up and helmets, but they are large and intimating all the less.

              “Rise, prisoners,” The taller one says in a raspy voice, holding out his arms. Rey instantly feels herself frozen in a Force hold and can tell Kylo is in the same situation. The doors to their cells open slowly. The other guard steps forward with a large contraption. Of hand and ankle shackles. Rey instantly realizes the purpose of the contraption. The hand shackles connect to the ankles, but another chain extends from the ankle shackles to the arms of another set of restraints. They are going to chain Rey and Ren together so even if they try to escape they will be limited in mobility.

              Rey’s arms begin to rise as the second guard steps forward to lock her into the shackles. As he swoops down to place the second set on her legs, she feels the guard’s gloved hand run down her leg slowly, from the inside of her thigh to the bridge of her bare foot. A shiver of disgust runs down Rey’s back. She looks at Ren who is glaring at the guard with a deadly stare. She is sure that he felt the uncomfortable contact as well through the bond, and Rey internally laughs. If only the guard knew he was not only feeling her up but also the man shooting daggers at him with his dark eyes just behind him.

              Once Rey is locked in the guard does the same to Kylo. From the faint pain around Rey’s ankles and wrists that she did not register as from her own restraints, she can tell that the guard tightened his much more. The discomfort is evident on his face as the guards grab Ren by the arms and push him forward. He is the person in the front of their chain. Rey can hardly see where they are going beyond his broad shoulders. She also finds it very difficult to maintain balance in the restraints. Though there is a loose chain between the two rings around her ankles, it is shorter than the average step. Twice she stumbled, almost pulling Ren down with her. She could feel his growing annoyance over their bond but ignored it. After the second time falling, the shorter guard, the one that touched Rey earlier, moved back to ensure her stability. He snaked his arm around her waist, his gloved fingers holding onto her tighter than she felt comfortable with. In fact, it hardly helped with her balance as she tripped once more, causing the guard to slide his hand further down on her waist so that it sat firmly on her hip.

              “I don’t think groping her is going to make it easier for her to walk,” Kylo growls suddenly, surprising Rey. The guard slides his hand to the middle of Rey’s back instantly, even though they are the ones with the weapons and Kylo is the prisoner in restraints. She finds it hilarious how intimidating Ren comes off as even when in the least powerful of positions.

              _“His touch is distracting me through the bond,”_ Ren practically whines and Rey smiles small enough that the guard won’t notice.

              _“I would have blocked it out for you but that would have been a little too nice, even for a truce.”_

Rey can sense his eye roll without even seeing it. _“I’ll remember that next time I find myself in such a situation.”_

They are led out of the prison to what looks like the bottom of a chasm. Rocky ledges line both sides of the walkway, but up above Rey can see the blue of the sky and it comforts her to be out of the stuffy prison and outside. As the guards lead them further away from their former residence, the ledges get less steep and shorter until they are but a few feet taller than Ren. With the shorter barriers, Rey feasts her eyes on a scene that is so spectacular that she trips on her restraints once again.

Mountains. She has seen large dunes and steep hills, but these are white capped, treacherous mountains that dip into the sky with sharp edges and steep grades like the jagged teeth of a nexu. What is even more shocking being the fact that the mountains are _floating_. As Rey’s eyes run from the top to the bottom of the mountains she finds that there is a gap between the end of the mountains and the ground, maybe three of her height off the ground. As the group turns towards the direction of the mountains, Rey realizes they will be walking right under the range, and that causes her nerves to spike.

“You both have been tasked with cleaning up a block in the path due to an avalanche. You will clear the rocks manually and then your job will be over.” The guard next to Kylo explains.

“Why are we doing this?” Kylo asks, anger laced through his voice, although at this point Rey has come to believe that Ren being mad is more of his natural state.

The guard does not shift his head from forward to reply. “I just carry out the orders given to me; I do not ask questions. You should do the same, prisoner.” 

Rey stares down at the chains holding Ren and her hostage. “Are you going to remove these restraints so we may work?” She asks the guards, but her question is only answered by a laugh.

“I get the feeling they don’t care how hard this will be for us,” Kylo comments dryly, sizing up the pile of rocks before them. The path was about the width of Rey’s arms stuck straight out, but there was that gap between the ground and the mountains that brought the difficulties. A daunting pile of circular rocks stood in a neat stack. They were only unmoving because the larger rocks got jammed between the ground and the mountain, causing a build up of the smaller ones. This should have been easy to do with any large contraption, to just push the small rocks out of the way, but of course this is meant to labor the prisoners, not be easy for them. Rey did not understand their motives, but she could tell how Kylo and her went about this would be important. If they start from the bottom, the rocks will begin to fan out and a second avalanche will occur. It could kill Kylo and her. The safest option is to take them from the top down, however that would waste more energy.

 _“Are you seriously thinking about how to accomplish this instead of how to escape right now?”_ Ren’s low voice hummed in her mind. The odds of them making it far with the restraints they are in caused her to not even consider that they could use this to escape.

 _“Just entertaining the idea. Could be helpful with escaping plans as well. In the meantime, we do need to at least look like we are working so they do not get suspicious.”_ Rey replied and received a hesitant feeling of approval back. They began by testing out the sturdiness of the pile. Rey pressed on a few rocks on the bottom to see how much weight they were bearing. They were solid with the pressure of the other rocks. A few on the sides were loose enough to roll out of the way but neither Kylo or Rey dared to force anything in fears they would end up dead under the pile.

 _“We can release some of the top rocks to cause them to roll towards the guards. That could get them out of the way and allow us time to run.”_ Kylo suggested as they began to climb on the sturdy rocks, slowly making their way towards the middle. _“Or just use the Force to throw the rocks at them,”_

Rey shook her wrists at him in frustration. _“Have you not noticed that these cuffs block off our practical use of the Force? Don’t you wish we could just sit back and move this with our powers instead of whatever nonsense we’re trying to accomplish right now? I’m pretty sure our bond is still functional only because it has grown so unfortunately strong after having to spend so much time with you,”_

Kylo sighed and shook a lock of hair out of his eyes. Though it seemed to be early morning, the weather was growing humid and his hair was beginning to stick to the sides of his face. If it weren’t for Rey’s buns, she would look similar.

They began on the top, taking the smaller ones and throwing them out of the way. They soon found a path from bottom to top that was strong enough to withstand some knocking around and were able to roll many of the larger ones down the pile and out of the way.

“This labor is insipid. Why are we doing this?” Kylo huffed, using the chains between them as leverage to set down the rock and allow it to roll. Rey could feel the stinging of the cuffs digging deep into her skin but she tried to ignore it. Her mind was too focused on solving the puzzle of the rocks. As she thrust a smaller stone with an overhand throw dizziness came over her and she stumbled. The world began spinning and Kylo just noticed her as she began toppling over with unconsciousness. Before her world went dark, she felt him grab her by the shoulders and pull her down onto a larger rock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading:) I have been unsure of the whole avalanche plotline, so I might go back and rewrite that eventually... I also edited the name of this story from Darkness is the Absence of Light to just The Absence of Light. It seemed a little too wordy for me.


	5. I.V Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> previously... The strange shared dreams continue to occur and of course, continue to make no sense. Ren and Rey are given a task.
> 
> In this chapter... More dream sequences and Ren and Rey begin to trust one another a little more.

_“Rey,” A faint voice said and Rey found herself standing in the midst of a dark void._

_“Who are you? Where are you?” Her voice came out more sheepish than she would have liked, but she continued to turn in circles looking for the source. Her hand reached down to her belt, but her weapon was not in its usual place clipped to her belt. Disappointment and fear surged through her._

_“Rey,” The voice, stronger this time said, and Rey turned to meet the glowing figure of a man in long robes and graying hair._

_“Master Luke?” She exclaimed, wanting to run to him and hug him with relief that he was there to save her. Rey’s feet would not obey her and she stayed put._

_“Rey, you know what is going on here. Think about it,” Luke insisted, his blue eyes boring into her intensely._

_“I can’t figure it out Master Luke, I do not know why in the galaxy we would be lifting rocks when the Mother just wants us to balance—“ She stopped, the answer lying right in front of her and she didn’t even know it. A smile appears on Luke’s face._

_“I think you get the point,” and he disappeared._

              One moment Kylo was chucking rocks, hoping one would bounce close enough to the guards to knock them in the head and kill the, and the next he was wrapping his arms around his enemy chained to him to keep her from falling off the pile of rocks and taking him with her. He felt her dizziness almost too late as she was already unconscious when he grabbed her. What perfect timing to take a nap.

              Kylo grunts and closes his eyes, trying to find his way into Rey’s mind. To his surprise, though she is unconscious, he has no entrance into her head. This admittedly scares him. What could put her out like a light in an instant with seemingly no cause? His fingers run across her neck to find a pulse and luckily he finds a strong one.

              “What is going on up there?” One of the guards yell, and Kylo glares at him as he is the one that was being a creep earlier in their walk.

              “She passed out. I think she is dehydrated. Is there water?” Ren yells back, a plan forming in his mind.

              “Just wake her up, she’s fine,” The other guard scoffs and Kylo’s anger flares.

              “How long can you do hard manual labor without hydration? This is not like a muscle cramp, you can’t just get up and keep pushing through.”

              The taller guard says something to the other and then pulls a canteen from his belt. The guard begins making his way up the mountain of fallen rocks until he reaches them and hands Kylo the water. He first sips it, not only to quench his own thirst but also to test that it is not poisoned. He then lifts Rey’s chin and uses the pad of his thumb to slowly open her mouth. He feels strange doing this, forcing fluids into her like she is a stubborn child, but she must need it. The water seems to cause her to stir so he hands it back to the guard.

              “Just get back to work,” He says and goes to turn, but while the guard was clipping the canteen back onto his belt, he looped the chains around the back of his heels loosely. As soon as the guard turned, his feet swung out from under him clumsily and he went tumbling head first down the pile of rocks. Kylo quickly scooped Rey up as he had on Takadona and hurried down the other side of the rocks. The chains made the process highly difficult, but he at least had a decent head start. As Rey and he had been clearing the rocks, they were pushing them further and further around the underbelly of the mountain, making even going around a long task for the guards. They had their chance to escape. Kylo began trying to move as fast as he could, but the chains interlocking his ankles restricted his speed greatly. He would have to play this one strategic, not strong. The underside of the mountains seemed to stretch for miles, but up close he noticed that many of them had dips and craters beneath them, or raised in elevation so that they just about touched the bottom of the mountains. Strangely enough, he also found that the ground beneath the mountains was very grassy and luscious. It made no sense, but Kylo was not about to question it. He quickly chose a nearby mountain with grass that was at least four feet high. Rey’s eyes began to flutter open and she came to quickly with the realization of what was happening. She shifted form peaceful to looking like she could kill him with her bare hands in seconds.

              _“Did you seriously decide to escape as soon as I lost consciousness?”_ She shot at him, the force of her anger causing him to wince slightly.

              _“Relax, scavenger, it is done and now we have to deal with it, so let’s go.”_

              They crouched down in the tall grass, it’s thick threads covering them better than Ren could have hoped. As the sound of boots running rapidly past them subsided, he couldn’t help but get the aching feeling that this was too easy.

              _“Oh good, you got that feeling too,”_ Rey shot at him through the bond, venom in her tone.

              _“Listen, are we not free right now? It could have been a lucky break you unappreciative little— “_

_“Hush,”_ She held a finger to her lips as the sound of footsteps returned.

              “They’re close, I can feel them.” A faint voice yelled and the footsteps began to spread out. Force, they are Force-sensitive. How could he have been so stupid to forget this.

_“I’m glad you thought this through ahead of time,”_ Rey snapped, and he turned to look at her angrily.

              _“Would you stop criticizing me right now and just focus on thinking of a way to get out of this?”_

              He watched as she closed her eyes, centering herself away from the anger he was exuding to channel her own path to the Force, though the special shackles heavily influenced their control over it. Her eyes snapped open a few moments later and he could see them twinkling with an idea.

              _“They probably can not sense us specifically but are going towards strong pulls to the Force. We need to draw them to something stronger… We need to lead them to the Mother.”_

              The ever loudening crackle of footsteps drawing closer and closer gives Kylo no chance to question the logistics of this suicide mission, but he figurs it is better than being sitting ducks. Still tied together they begin crawling as quietly as possible, careful to not disturb the grass too much and give away their position. They keep going until the grass begins to thin and rockier terrain is before them. They are losing cover quickly.

              A familiar sound flows into Kylo’s ears and he realizes what it is immediately. Water. It is gentle yet he could tell the undercurrents are strong indicating a river before them.

              _“We can use the river to cover us. It will be hard to distinguish us from the strength of the currents,”_ He suggests, and feels a wave of nervousness. _“What’s wrong?”_ He asks just as the river comes into view. The rocky ground turns sandier as it runs into the water. The river isn’t too far across, but he is to be more worried about where this takes them rather than how to get across.

              _“Kylo… I do not know how to swim.”_ She says in a small voice, and realization from his dream washes over him. Of course, he should have known that.

              “ _Well, I don’t have any other ideas, do you? It will take us too long to get all the way back to Mother and they will catch us by then at the rate we are going.”_ He is harsh, but he could feel them growing closer and there is no time to waste.

              _“If I can’t swim then how— “_

_“Don’t worry about that I have an idea.”_

Kylo practically pulls Rey down to the edge of the river and wades waist deep in. She hesitantly follows, half provoked by the need to survive and also by the fact she is literally chained to him. That would soon be solved as well.

              Kylo dug deep, allowing his anger to consume him as he contacts the Dark side of the Force. Using the natural element of the river, he increases his power and concentrates it hard into the shackles. His head pounds from the exertion, but as he feels the cuffs around his ankles and wrists slowly melt away, he feels satisfied for his efforts.

              “How did you do that?” Rey asks aloud, her jaw dropping as she stares at her cleared wrists.

              “Just because you associate the Dark side with evil does not mean it isn’t helpful.” He says in a low voice, and takes her wrist, pulling her deeper into the water. He can feel the panic within her as her feet are only barely reaching the bottom.

              _“Just relax. If you panic, you will begin to sink. Breathe like you do when you are mediating.”_ He urges her, slowly pulling her forward with the current of the river. It is tough to go this slowly and not give in to the pull, but Kylo knows from personal experience that it is better to get her to trust the feel of the water rather than just throw her in and hope she figures out how to swim. He mentally curses the memory of a scrawny Ben Solo swallowing mouthfuls of water while trying to scream after his father threw him in the pond because “This will be a useful skill at some point,”

              They continue slowly, making their way away from the point they had entered the river. Rey walks slowly along the bottom, only her toes able to reach the sandy gravel below. Her hands squeeze tightly around Kylo’s wrist as he tows her at a slightly quicker pace.

              _“It’s going to get deeper here. I want you to kick your feet rapidly with pointed toes. Not too big, but just small, fast kicks. Try not to bend your knees and get power from your thighs.”_ He instructs, and he felt the water swirl beneath them as she changes her tactics. She initially begins to sink without the solid ground beneath her, and a quick moment of panic fills her, but Kylo tries to transfer calm feelings towards her and she soon is able to hold her weight with just her legs as she needs to. A sense of pride fills Kylo as they continue on, her strength and confidence growing the more they paddle down the river. He is the reason she is able to do this and be alive right now and he can’t help but revel in that feeling of reliance she has on him right now. It is intoxicating, and he wishes that he were more than just in a truce with her but she was his student. That look of wonder when he melted the chains was the kind of moments with a student he wished so hard for, and with her raw power she would be incredible under his instruction. This truce may be the perfect time to convince her of this…

              Kylo feels a shift in the river and a grave feeling comes over him. The currents are picking up too rapidly. He closes his eyes to try and see ahead in the path, but he can only see a cloud of mist.

              “Kylo, why does it look like the river is going to end ahead?” Fear is exuding from Rey through the bond and Ren realizes why he is seeing only mist ahead. The river is threatening to throw them over a waterfall.

              “Rey, we need to get to land right now. I want you listen to me closely. You’re going to take a deep breath and hold it in your lungs. Then you’re going to duck down underwater and find the bottom with your feet. You are going to bend your knees and push off the bottom, which will give you some power to push towards the shore and out of the current. Can you do that?”

              Her face reads of an overwhelming fear, but she nods. She takes a deep breath, giving Ren one last look as he lets go of her and she releases his wrist. He does the same, breathing in and ducking down under water. He opens his eyes and sees that she has found the bottom of the river and is preparing to push off. That flare of pride fills him again as they both push off and she kicks rapidly to push herself towards the shore. Ren gets a larger push and finds himself almost to the bank when he resurfaces. He turns rapidly around, seeing that Rey is just a few arm lengths behind him, kicking like hell. She is afraid but determined. Her head ducks below water a few times but she gets close enough for Ren to grab her by the elbow and pull her to his chest. She holds onto the soaking material of his shirt for a few seconds before pushing back from their closeness and sitting next to him on the bank.

              “As beautiful as water is, I prefer dry land.” She says breathlessly between coughs. They stand, the water running rapidly off their clothes and forming small puddles around their feet. Kylo turns to Rey to see that she has taken off one arm wrap and is wringing it out on the ground. His eyes immediately draw to her forearms, which, just as in his dream, are peppered with scars.

              “What is it?” She asks, meeting his eyes and turning her arms away from him consciously.

              “No-nothing, I was just thinking.” He replies adverting his eyes to mask the strange sense of anger dwelling in him. As much as he would like to prod her thoughts to see if she too is thinking of the dream to confirm his belief that she and him shared that experience on the cliff, he is careful not to upset her too much as they have been working so well together in this truce thus far.

              “It is growing dark. We need to keep moving. I do not want to know of the things that lurk this planet when it is night,” Rey says slipping her wraps back on and working on the ends of her tunic.

              “I agree,”

 

 

              She looks at him, his hair soaking wet and sticking to his neck as he squeezes the sleeves and ends of his clothes while they walk into the forest alongside the river. She will never admit this to him, but since they called a truce, Rey can actually find herself not wanting to kill him at every waking moment. He is a monster, definitely, but the gentleness he displayed when teaching her how to swim, and the unconditional trust she immediately placed in him surprised her. The way he looked at her when she was swimming on her own was not missed. The same feeling came over her when she caught him staring at the markings on her arms. He looked worried, even angry and it confused the hell out of her, but she felt a sense of warmth in his presence that gave her a strange sense of hope. Somewhere within Kylo Ren is a decent human, and a small part of Rey hopes that that part of him is not completely gone. Rest assured, when they get out of this place, and she gets back to the Resistance and he goes back to the First Order, she will not hesitate to call him her enemy once again. No matter the fact that they are working as a unit in the current moment. He has done too much bad to be given mercy. Rey can not get the picture of Han out of her head as he fell dead by his own son’s hand and he watched with not so much as a look of regret. She frequently reminds herself of this whenever she feels herself beginning to forgive him.

              She changes her own thoughts to her encounter with Luke. She knows what needs to be done, but in order for it to happen they will have to attempt something that neither of them will necessarily be comfortable with. Mother wants to balance out Mortis. Well, how do they do that? What they need is someone on the dark side and someone on the light side, so Ren and Rey respectively. But what if, there is no dark and light and instead two persons using the dark side or two using the light side? Their use for Kylo and Rey is gone because they are unable to create a balance anymore.

              What will be hard to convince Kylo of is that one of them needs to switch sides for the purposes of surviving.

             

 

Darkness begins to cover the land as night falls. Rey quickly finds that night on Mortis is not like anything she has ever seen before. As soon as the last drop of light leaves, everything immediately dies. The grass, the trees, the flowers all wilt and dry before her eyes. Strange sounds begin to ring out and echo through the night, some far and others close. It is more unnerving than trying to navigate Jakku during a sand storm. At least on Jakku, Rey knows what is out there and how to deal with the monsters that lurk out of her view.

“We need to find shelter or whatever is in these woods will kill us before the guards are able to.” Kylo whispers. “We also need weapons of sorts.”

“I can make weapons if you can find somewhere to sleep.” She suggests, ideas of building a staff for herself and sharpening the end of a thick stick for Kylo already forming in her mind.

“Fine, if you sense anything through the Force come find me. I will do likewise.” He begins walking towards what looks like the edge of a rocky hill. Rey stays in the forest and begins searching for sticks that are to her satisfaction.

Scavenging has always been natural to Rey, as much as she hates that to be the case. She has always strangely been able to find what she is looking for even when she had no idea where to look, something she now attributes to her unknown connection to the Force. Just as her luck on ships, she comes across a fallen tree with numerous broken branches surrounding it. They are large but not so much that they can’t be lifted. She finds a few smaller ones that are light enough to wield as a sword. She will fix those for Kylo when she returns to wherever they will settle. A long branch catches her eye and a smile erupts on her face. It is just the right thickness and length as her old staff she used to wield. She picks it up and even the weight seems about right. She is giddy with the relief of having something in her hand that she can use as a weapon.

As it turns out, that was the perfect moment to obtain something to strike with. She doesn’t sense it until it jumps upon her. It is a creature she was unfamiliar with and it’s strong, grasping her underneath its large claws and digging its nails into her side. She screams and reaches for her new staff she had just found but it is just out of reach. The creature is twice her size and has two large eyes staring at her with malicious interest. It smells metallic, which she quickly realizes is not coming from the monster but from where she is now bleeding from its claws. Pain rolls through her in waves of nausea but she pushes it down to try and concentrate of getting out of this. She concentrates on the staff and summons it to her with a quick burst of the Force. It rattles to life and meets her hands just as the creature opens its enormous jaws. She stuffs the staff into the back of its throat, causing it to whine in pain but also dig further into her sides. The creature chokes and she strikes it again, this time in the eye. This gets it off of her and she rolls to the side to get to her feet.

_“Kylo…”_  She urges weakly through the bond, hoping for him to show up at any minute and help her, but she only feels silence at his end. Force, of course he picks this time to be quiet.

The creature lunges at her again and she dodges its advance. Dark spots begin appearing in the corner of her vision as her wounds continue to bleed. This time she pushes the pain through the bond, hoping to catch his attention. With that in the back of her mind she goes on the offensive. Striking hard at the head of the beast it lets out a horrid noise and turns to her again. She seems to at least shaken it as a dark liquid runs down the end of her makeshift weapon. Concentrating on keeping calm though her heart is pumping at a rapid pace, she hits the creature with the strongest Force blast she can manage, and it goes flying back against a tree, smashing its head into the ground roughly. Rey hears a crack and the creature lays on the ground limply. She falls to her knees, the adrenaline quickly wearing off to give way to the shock from her injuries. She needs to find Ren. Using her staff as a support she makes her way in the direction he walked earlier. As she gets closer she can feel his connection with her grow stronger.

_“Where are you?”_ His voice rings through her head and she feels their bond suddenly strong and open. All his emotions are bombarding her: worry, confusion, anger. It occurs to her that maybe they got too far apart and the bond was interrupted because of the strange way the Force interacts on this planet. She hopes deep down that that is the case and he did not just abandon her to be taken for dead in the middle of this dying forest.

_“Did you feel me calling for you?”_ She says back to him, wanting to put her worries at ease before she see’s him.

_“I can feel you’re in pain but this is the first I’ve felt anything over the bond. Where are you?”_ He repeats, his voice more demanding this time.

_“I am—I am close.”_ Rey musters, once again falling from the dizziness of blood loss.

_“Shit, stay awake,”_ He orders and she struggles to get to her feet once again. Their bond is humming with power as he is using it to track back to her. She manages a few more steps before falling again, this time her knees buckling underneath her and her face smashing into the dirt with a painful thud. Her eyes threaten to shut and pull her into the darkness of unconsciousness, but she pushes back that feeling to get herself upright once again. The constant effort it is taking to get back up has her muscles screaming for her to stop and rest, but if she stops it only increases the chances of her being found by some other beast. The crackling sound of footsteps stepping on branches reaches her ears and she holds her staff out in defense, looking for the source. A dark figure appears from the shadows and stops, and she screams, jabbing her staff at it. The figure dodges her attempt and starts to approach her. Her eyes make out the face of a violent scavenger she frequently encountered and was ruthless when it came to territory. Why he has come to Mortis is beyond her but she knows she can not let him get to her. She begins to run the opposite direction, her legs threatening to give out completely but she forces them to continue. The scavenger is close behind her, yelling in the dialect of Jakku that has become a second language to her. She screams back in the same language, warning him to go away or she will kill him. With the distraction of talking taking over her mind, her foot catches on a fallen branch and the ground comes up to meet her. The figure catches up to her quickly, reaching down towards her. She can smell his stale breath and begs him to leave her alone as she is already dying. The figure seems to notice the stains of blood soaking her clothes at that moment, because his movements become gentler yet more frantic. Rey can not understand him anymore as his words are more noises than language. She begs once again, her voice weak and fading as the darkness she tried so hard to push back returns

 


	6. I.VI Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously...  
> Rey and Ren escape from capture, but being on their own have found some new dangers not anticipated. At the end of the previous chapter, Ren is looking for Rey after she's been attacked...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for how long it's been... I got really caught up in school and everything else took a backseat. I am going to work on being better at posting regularly.

Panic fills Kylo as he runs through the woods, following the strengthening signal of their bond. He didn’t hear her pleas for help. She reached out for him and the damned Force on this planet sent her message into the void instead of to him. He can still feel the pain jetting into his sides getting stronger as he grows closer. She is moving towards him but at a much slower pace. He feels her time of consciousness is running out and he runs faster.

Emerging into a clearing, he spots her. She is clutching a long branch tightly, her face smeared with dirt and the rest of her body covered in blood that he can only hope is not just hers. She looks at him in confusion and fear, holding onto her staff tighter.

“Rey, are you— “He is interrupted by her thrusting her staff at him violently, tears streaming down her face. She doesn’t recognize him he realizes as he approaches her slowly. She turns and sloppily runs away from him. For as much pain she is in and as much blood he can feel she’s lost, she is quick. He tries to yell after her to convince her it is him.

“Rey, stop, it’s me, Kylo! I’m not going to hurt you,” He urges. She replies, but in a dialect that Kylo can not understand. She continues to yell in the strange language until he sees her go down hard from a branch. He reaches her instantly, her consciousness slowly fading from her. She now whispers in that same language and he feels the desperation in her voice. She thinks he is going to kill her. He presses his hands to her side and feels the deep wounds. This blood is hers. He removes the outer layer he is wearing and ties it tightly around her waist to put pressure on the wounds. The action causes her to shift in agony. He curses and scoops her up in his arms as she slips from reality into unconsciousness. His memory reverts to when he carried her to his ship on Takadona. She is even lighter now. His motives that day were far different than this moment. That day he thought of all the things he was interested to learn about her while looking for the map. He wondered how a scavenger from Jakku ended up so far from home and mixed up with the scum of the resistance. She admittedly intrigued him beyond his mission of getting the map to Luke, but after the interrogation that went horribly wrong, he was more than intrigued into learning about her. She is a nobody. There is no reason she should be so strong with the Force, but she is and it is frustrating to him. She did not spend years training to learn how to yield it, yet she so naturally used to against him. It infuriated him and he hated her for it.

Right now he all but hates her. A completely different set of emotions runs through him as he holds her limp body in his arms. He feels responsible though it is not his fault she was attacked. He feels panic that she will die, which will most likely be blamed on him by the Resistance if he is to return to the First Order. His panic also extends to the fact that he has grown to not hate her in their time together and instead only feel mild dislike and annoyance. He might even _like_ her… He feels angry at himself and Mortis and everything around him and wants nothing more than to take his saber and destroy anything he can get to.

Kylo reaches the cave that he discovered and pulls her into it. It is small and moist but it will have to do. He removes the strip of his shirt from her waist and sighs in relief that the bleeding has begun to slow and clot. This is good news. Kylo lifts up her shirt, careful to keep it covering her but peeling it up enough to get a good look at her wounds. They are not quite as deep as he initially thought and from what he can tell they did not hit any vital organs. She is lucky. He pushes into her mind and finds that she has relaxed into more of a sleeping state rather than being unconscious due to shock. It makes no sense how she is not dying at the moment but Kylo chooses to not question it. He lays his hand in the middle of her stomach and channels the Force through it. Pulling some of her pain out of her he takes it into his own, wincing at the sting it brings. He can’t do much for her, but he can at least relieve her of some pain if it will help.

It is strange how easily he chooses to save her. He could so quickly leave her to die and get off this planet on his own. Without her he could move faster, be stealthier. Yet, whenever he considers it, he can feel their bond buzzing between them and it pulls him to the decision that he _can’t_ leave her. It annoys the hell out of him.

 

 

Rey wakes up screaming. She stands straight up, nearly smacking her head into a low hanging rock. She falls back down onto the ground in surprise and is instantly met by heavy footsteps approaching. Kylo appears, his face laced with concern. He is standing in an attack position, the staff that Rey had found the night before pointed at her threateningly. He relaxes as soon as he realizes she is alone, and lays the staff up against the wall.

“How do you feel?” He asks blankly, obviously not trying to seem concerned but the way he looks at her with hopeful eyes gives his emotion away.

“In pain but that is to be expected I suppose.” She winces and leans back against the wall of the cave. The cool temperature is soothing and she wants nothing more than to go back to sleep. “How long was I out? What even happened? I don’t remember much after the attack.”

“It’s only been a few hours,” he pauses, sitting down in the cave across from her. “You were calling for help over the bond. I think Mortis caused your message to get lost but as soon as you got close I could hear you. I found you and you were bleeding pretty badly and were yelling at me in some language, but I brought you back here and it seems your wounds are already on the mend.”

Rey is quiet for a moment. Kylo truly saved her life, and that thought is terrifying to her. It also brings about a lot of questions on what provoked him even help her. He so easily could have left her for dead, no more truce, no more enemy.

The pain in her side grew as her sudden movements caught up with her. Her vision become fuzzy but she tried her best to push it away. Ren could definitely tell as he leaned forward, gently touching her side. She tapped into his mind to see what he was thinking. He let her in.

_“You’re burning up. Might be an infection. I need to look at it.”_

“No, I-I can deal with it. Just leave me alone for a little bit,” Rey gasped, and he withdrew with a strange look on his face.

“If it’s infected we need to clean it.” He urged and she cursed that he chose this time to care.

“Well then, how ‘bout you go find some water to clean this with?” Rey fired back and his face went blank with frustration. Away goes the gentle and compliant Kylo Ren and returns his hardened expression. Without another word he turns on his heels and walks out of the cave.

Rey had only done this a few times before. She found that she could do this after slicing her foot on a sharp rock while training with Luke. She was far from her hut and Luke was nowhere to be found. She sat there for a solid hour and a half trying to keep it clean and stop the bleeding but it had been cut deep and it was not set on stopping anytime soon. An idea had appeared in her mind. If she could manipulate object to move, maybe she could do the same with her wound, force it to stitch back together. It was far-fetched, but as Rey sat on the rock meditating, concentrating her thoughts on mending her cut, she opened her eyes to see the bleeding had stopped and all that remained was a scab slightly sore to the touch. She had no idea what she had done, and it had taken an enormous amount of energy to manipulate every single cell in her foot, but it had been done. After discussions with Master Luke, he was quite surprised but excited of her discovery and explained the concept of Force-healing. It was hard to master, especially the bigger the wound. The cut Rey had obtained was a good practice, clean margins and time to calm down in order for it to work well. He advised her to hold onto the skill of healing but not to use it unless it was truly needed and only to the point that it was bearable to stand. The energy that it consumed could be detrimental if caught off guard.

Rey closes her eyes and concentrates her thoughts on her side. She can feel the slow beginnings of her wounds building up scar tissue and pulling back together but if she is in any shape to get off Mortis and defeat Mother she needs to be in much better condition. She begins with the infection that is just beginning to form as Kylo had suspected. She quickly rids herself of all the bad bacteria and starts closing the wounds. It takes what feels like hours. Her skin pulls together, still forming some scar tissue but less that she can control it. The pain slowly subsides and is replaced with a bit of soreness by the time she collapses back against the wall of the cave once again and closed her eyes to rest. She felt absolutely exhausted, but at least she isn’t injured anymore.

Ren returned at the first signs of night. He had been gone a long time but she was not concerned about him as soon as she felt him over the bond and he was commenting to himself on the strange terrain of Mortis and how things die at night. This allowed her to relax and she allowed herself to drift off to sleep.

                  Before Rey can fall into a restful sleep she is practically shaken awake. Her eyes flew open to a panicked Kylo Ren holding her by the shoulders. He quickly backed off when a rush of annoyance hits him through their bond.

                  “I thought you were unconscious again…from the infection,” he claims quietly, kneeling down a few meters from where she lay. Rey realizes that the way she was lying looked haphazard and like she had collapsed in place, so she didn’t blame his thoughts going in that direction. She straightens herself out smooths her clothes. This earned her a suspicious glare from Ren.   

                  “Wait a second,” He trails off before moving forward again, just as he had earlier in the day, and lifts her tunic to reveal her side. Rey is happy with her work, though it had been tiring healing it to almost completion, all that she was left with were a few pink scars zig-zagging up her sides. Kylo looks at her with wide eyes. “Did you do this?” He asks, running his hands up and down the scars. His touch caused shivers to run down her sides from the chilliness of his finger tips. She swats his hand away and pulls her tunic back down quickly.

                  “I might have,” Rey says in barely a whisper, suddenly self-conscious of what she had done and what Ren will think of it. He shakes his head in disbelief and runs a hand through his dark hair.

                  “I have been trying to master Force-healing for years. It’s incredibly difficult.”

                  Rey is surprised by this. Ren seemed like the type of person that would have this down to an art already. He exudes power and as much as it scares her, she also admires it in a strange fear-filled way. She feels a sense of pride that she had a skill that he is unable to wield, but she does not feel like boasting would be the greatest of ideas as he has many other advantages over her already with his advanced training. She looked up at Ren but he was already staring at her with _admiration_ in his eyes. “You truly are something, aren’t you,” he says softly, his eyes catching on her eyes for a few long seconds before he leaves the cave without another word.

 

 

                   
                  Force-healing. Why isn’t he surprised. That girl, that _scavenger_ is a wonder.

He returned later that night to find her already curled up asleep in the cave. She needed the rest; he had attempted so many times to mend himself but had only been successful with small cuts that he self inflicted for practice. Nothing larger than a finger length or deeper than the surface of the skin. Even these had worn him out. In fact, he was surprised she was even able to carry a short conversation with him in the state she should have been in.

                  Ren always suspected his mother had an affinity to Force-healing. Though she was very conservative about her use of it—he couldn’t recall a time he even remembers her explicitly using it, only a few suspicions—he had his share of injuries as a young child that seemed to heal quicker than they should have. When he was 8, he remembers asking his mother about this.

                  _“You are strong and stubborn, Ben. Your body refuses to stay hurt for long. You truly are amazing.”_ Her calm voice is as clear as it was that day she said that. It was a small statement, probably insignificant in her mind, but he always dwelled on her words of his strength even from that age.

                  He sits down on a stump. Night had just fallen, and just as it had the day before, all living things died. It is like the entire world screams of danger and ominous beings lurking close by. He hates staying in one place for too long, but there is no way they would get far at night in a place where they are unarmed and unprepared for anything that could come about. His mind shifts back to his parents, not an uncommon thought process when he is awake late at night. He often lies awake just trying to consider where things turned—where he went from training to be a Jedi to allowing the resentment in his heart to overtake him completely. He feels the pull back to the light side like a pinch on the arm when he is falling asleep. His guard is down and what he has been conditioned to gravitate towards for years tries to fight its way back. Of course, that is not what Ren wants. It may have been what Ben wanted, but Ben is gone.

                  _“Ben, you are going to stay with Uncle Luke for a bit. He is going to teach you how to use these powers for good. He was a great Jedi in his day and I hope that you will find a mentor in him.”_ His mother had said a few weeks before his departure. At the time, he was excited for an adventure all his own. He had been on plenty with his father all around the galaxy. Every so often Chewy would take some leave to rest from an injury or go see a friend. In those times, Ben was promoted to the status of co-pilot, and he would bound out to the _Millennium Falcon_ in excitement. His father would tell him to pick a place, anywhere in the galaxy as long as they could make it there and back in a week. Leia only allowed for a standard week for excursions away from home. Ben would point to a place on the map, and Han would take off, teaching Ben how to enter in the coordinates for hyperspace and they would spend their time while traveling at light speed watching holos, or poking around the ship to learn the in’s and out’s of it, or Ben would sit and listen to his fathers stories of his great adventures before he was born (and the ones he didn’t tell his mother about after he came into the world).

                  When they returned, his father and he would sit in the ship and get their stories straight. They would agree on which parts to leave out when telling his mother about their trip and which parts to stretch the truth on. It was a fun game that always seemed to amuse his mother because it was painfully obvious when they were lying because his father would get this crooked smile on his face that gave it all away. His mother would look amused but he could always hear Han giving into her and telling her the whole truth once Ben went to bed. This usually warranted some playful argument or witty retorts, but as long as they came back safe she never got too upset over adventures.

                  These are the memories Ren likes to block out but often come to his mind before he can refute them. The reality of his childhood is that the good memories were few and far between. Chewy didn’t often take leave, and Han hardly ever took him with him when his furry companion and he were going for a job.

                  _“You know your mother would kill me if I took you with me on one of my jobs. The situation can go from perfectly fine to deadly in a matter of seconds and she nor I could live with myself if you were involved with that,”_ was the basis of his go-to response to Ben begging to come with. Leia always backed him up, reminding him that going on an adventure to a safe planet with his father was not the same as transporting goods across the galaxy or meeting with personal at military bases to give tips for new pilots. It angered Ben, but it wasn’t being left at home that bothered him. It was that his father left him _and_ his mother. His mother was always understanding of Han’s need to not stay in one place, but Ben listened to her cry many a night in longing for her husband to be there with her. She cried on Ben’s 9 th birthday when he had promised to make it back and ended up needing to extend his trip by two days. She broke out sobbing at the dinner table when Ben lost his first tooth and Han wasn’t there to share in the moment with her. It terrified him every time because his mother is not one to cry. He can count the number of times he has seen her shed a tear on one hand, and all of them were because of his father not being around for the important moments. Ben always had a feeling of anger towards his father as a result, but as soon as they shot into hyperspace to go check out a new world, all that anger melted away and he could only feel admiration for his father, the war hero and adventurer.

                  Ben was thirteen when he left home to train to be a Jedi with Uncle Luke. His father was home the day he left, and he watched as his mother and father held each other as he took off in his ship. He realized in that moment that with him gone, whenever Han decided to take off with Chewy in the middle of the night, his mother would have no one to sit across from at breakfast and go on and on about her strange dreams or the drama at her work. It infuriated him that they can so easily send him away, especially when he had heard their more frequent fights about how he is the reason Han still comes back as often as he does. If he is the glue to the family, then without him his parents are two pieces without a way to stay together. This fact became increasingly apparent whenever he would talk to his parents. It was always, _“Your father’s work schedule has picked up a lot,”_ or _“I just started taking more shifts at the base so your father decided to take another day before returning.”_ Though Ben was among his uncle and other students, all he could feel was alone. He felt alone because his family was being torn apart and they let it happen. He felt abandoned by how they just left him to train and didn’t care to ever _ask_ him if this is what he wanted. His mother was always so excited about him going to train in the Force that he never raised any of his lingering doubts that maybe he isn’t cut out to be a Jedi. He always felt the order was old fashioned and too reliant on the absolutes of the Force. Ben had spent a lot of time researching the Force and all the different stances on it, and he disagreed with varying aspects of many existing and extinct orders. Because of this, he felt lonely in his own mind, not knowing where he belongs or what his purpose is in the world.

                  Ren has tried hard to sum it up to a few simple reasons why he turned away from his family just to fuel his hatred for what he was being pushed into. He has found repeatedly that it is far more than a few simple reasons, which only makes him angry. He wants nothing more than to eliminate every spec of light in his body that ties him back to his mother and father and the future they imagined for their powerful son. He thought the death of Han Solo would do this, but it only thrust him into more of an internal battle. He is running low on ideas.

 

 

 

                  Morning brought rain and Rey and Ren both decided it was a good time to move. The rain would shield them while also keeping other creatures out of the way to avoid the storm. She is substantially better when she awoke. Dark circles still bagged under her eyes but her face has more color in; her eyes have more life. Ren spent a few hours meditating and thinking but eventually drifted into sleep only to be woken at the brink of dawn by pangs of thunder and strikes of lightening illuminating the cave. Rey was already up, watching the precipitation in amazement while chewing on a ration.

                  “Have you ever seen rain?” Ren asks lazily, still lying in his makeshift bed as he watches her eyes follow the droplets that were catching on the cave fall all the way to the floor.

                  “I saw it when training with Luke, but it still captivates me every time. For 15 years the only storm I knew was a sand storm. It was a joke on Jakku that water doesn’t fall from the sky so you must preserve it. But here… here water does fall from the sky!” She sticks out her tongue and catches a droplet with the smile of a child receiving a gift on his birthday. Her ignorance of the world outside her barren home always brings him amusement. He finds it quite… cute…. that she is so amazed by the simplest of things.  She catches him staring at her and calms her excitement, going back to her task of tying up her hair that she was distracted from.

                  They set off. They do not know where to go besides trying to avoid the mountains and gravitate towards the areas that seem promising to land a ship. With the rain and thunder filling in the gaps, they walk in mostly silence. Ren is not one for talking much and it seems that Rey had spent so long alone she did not know what to say in situations such as walking in the rain with her mortal enemy while trying to evade a larger common enemy. He is sure it is not a scenario she thought about while killing time at home.

                  _“You are right about that,”_ She says suddenly through the bond, and he shoots her a look for listening to his thoughts. He is grateful for the rain obscuring her vision of him because he does not want her to see his face hot with embarrassment.

                  _“What do you even do on a planet as awful as Jakku?”_ He asks, not really sure why he cares, but he is curious for her answer. She pauses for a few moments, sifting through her memories. He tries to take a peek at what she is thinking about but she kicks him out quickly.

                  _“I mostly worked on my scavenging. It was the only way to get food. I did enjoy the exploration of it though, like getting to go on ships. When I wasn’t working I would usually spend time at home. Sometimes I would go into town.”_ She sounds solemn speaking of her old life. Understandably so, he figures, as she was alone for most of her life. _“Living on Jakku was not a leisurely life. I learned how to survive and lessons that I will never be able to forget,”_

Scars. The image of her arms floats through his brain and she turns to him in confusion. Ren curses the lack of defenses he is keeping up. She saw.

                  “Why are you thinking about my arms?” She inquires, this time out loud. Her voice is a mixture of confusion and defensiveness.

                  “I saw the scars when you were wringing your clothes out. I figured they were from scavenging.” This is the half truth.

                  “Mostly yes. I just don’t know why that popped into your head.”

                  “Well my mind has no form or function to it at times so maybe if you weren’t so nosy and poking around my thoughts you wouldn’t be confused in the first place,” he growls, more hostile than he intends. She does not reply for at least an hour. Her next question to him takes him by complete surprise.

                  “How do you know if the light side or the dark side is calling to you?” She asks suddenly. Kylo stops in surprise. She is looking at him with nervous eyes, obviously worried about how he will react to the question. He isn’t sure how to approach an answer either.                 

                  “Are you trying to ask if I was born with the capacity to murder innocent people? Because I am not sure I am able to answer that question definitively.” He replies coldly and regret shoots through her immediately. He can also feel himself regret the way he answered. Far more hostile than he needed to be, but at this point she has come to expect this type of response.

                  “Oh no that’s not what I meant— “

                  “Rey, I can read your thoughts. I know your frequent reminders to yourself of all the people you know that I’ve killed. You keep a tally in your mind that you worry will grow as long as the marks on your wall at home,”

                  Kriff, he made a mistake mentioning that…

                  “Wait, how the hell do you know about that?” She demands, this time its her turn to stop and jab at his chest with an accusatory finger. “You shouldn’t be able to know about that,”

How does he get himself out of this one? Either way he will have explaining to do and he does not feel like that type of activity while he is practically shivering from the cold and constantly looking out for any sort of activity around them besides their own.

                  “Like I said, I can read your— “

                  “You’re lying. I know you’re lying. You didn’t see it in my thoughts.”

                  “Why does it matter so much? It’s just a stupid— “

                  “Were you at my home?”

                  “Not much of a home, but no I was not physically at your house.”

                  “What do you mean by physically?”

                  A pause. He decides it is best just to tell her or else they would be standing there yelling at each other until someone comes along and kills them.

                  “A dream. I saw it in a dream.”

                  She looks frustrated and steps forward towards him, raising her hand towards his forehead like he had done to her so many times. Her hand makes contact with his cheek, almost like a caress, and he feels her gently enter his mind to see what he had seen in the dream. He makes it easy for her and pushes it through the bond. This is a fight he is going to lose either way. She stands there for a long few minutes until she steps back, her eyes more sad than angry with him as they were before. She turns and continues walking without a word and Ren feels the walls she is placing up within their bond slam in a tight defense.

 

 


	7. I.VII Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously... Ren has to make a decision to go to the light to save Rey and him.

The only question floating through her head was _how_. How was he able to go to Jakku? How did he encounter her in such a way? How did they have the same dream? How, how, _how?_ She wants to scream at the vulnerability he had found her in. That dream raised many questions about Ren but she never thought that he also experienced the same dream.

              “I’m sorry,” His voice ringing through the gentle patter of the rain surprises her. She looks up at him but he keeps his eyes trained ahead, refusing to look back at her. “you were torn from your home not once but twice. You have no one and I preyed on that.”

              His apology, though Rey is still confused on what he means by it, seems surprisingly sincere. She could feel his empathy pushing against the walls she had built up in the bond, but she didn’t let it flood her. Opening a small valve in her mind, she allows a drop of his emotion to squeeze through, just so she could feel his sincerity. She wants to push it out. She wants to scream at him that he didn’t know anything about her and he is nothing but a monster trying to manipulate her. Unfortunately, his raw emotions are not lying to her and she had no other choice than to accept his sincerity as genuine remorse for how messed up her life has been and how his actions have led to it becoming even more jumbled. As much as she wants to hate him for invading her mind, she feels comforted by his presence and the obvious attempts he is making at being a decent human.

              “Each mark was another day that they didn’t come back,” Rey says quietly. “They promised me they would return. Unkar Plutt assured me they told him they would return for me. I truly… I truly believed that I would not be alone my entire life.”

              She remembers her last memory of the ship leaving Jakku. Young Rey knew who the people who dropped her off were but as she grew older their faces ceased to show in her mind no matter how hard she tried to concentrate. She was screaming, Unkar pulling her by her hand as his other hand rested on a sack of credits that were given to him to help her get her new life started. She cried for days until she was dehydrated and ill. Her tally marks began, and as she filled up one wall it only assured her that the day she would meet her parents again was only closer. That was ten years ago.

              “Would you go back?” Ren asks and Rey considers it for a moment but she already knows her answer.

              “No. I won’t stop searching for my parents, but I have at least given up on waiting. The only thing waiting got me was pain and suffering and a fifteen years of being alone.”

              “I sometimes think about what would happen if I went back.” Ren says and it shocks Rey that he is even willing to speak about leaving the life of Kylo Ren behind. It did not seem like something he would be allowed to consider. “My mother would be thrilled, I’m sure. She still holds onto the hope that I will come knocking at her door one day. I don’t know how she can still feel that way after… what I did,” He grimaces, remembering the death of his father by his hand and Rey feels rage for that moment but also continued shock that he seemed remorseful for it, even mad at himself. “To answer your question from earlier, everyone responds to the Force differently. I myself found more power in channeling my rage, which is a Dark side feature. I felt more connected to the Dark side, but as I have said before, the Dark side does not necessarily equate to evil. I chose my fate to join the First Order, to be a Knight of Ren under the Supreme Leader because that’s what felt right to me. It gave me the power I sought for so long. I have not completely abandoned the use of the light side, though. The light side has advantages and powers that the dark side is not concentrated enough to harvest at times. Force healing, for instance, is a light side power that I struggle with because I am more in practice to the dark side and you naturally gravitate towards the light side. It is a matter of personality, how the Force flows through you and how you concentrate the best to harvest it. I chose my fate and you are free to choose yours as well, though I still believe that I could be vital to your learning of the Force. Luke’s teachings are concentrated solely in the light side. He does not consider the balance that can come about from utilizing both sides,” Ren’s answer turns more into a rant, but Rey lets him continue with wide eyes, as she had never heard anyone talk so openly about the Force, even a murderous monster with an affinity to the dark side, and she craves the information. “The Jedi order failed for a reason. They were met with too many restrictions that did not allow for the natural use of the Force to be utilized. They put dark and light into two categories, evil and good, and left it at that. Of course, the dark side tends to be easier for those with malevolent intentions to utilize and the light side respectively with those who seek peace. There is no doubt about that. But by placing the dark side into the category of evil it is causing more to become evil through the intention of preventing it. Luke’s training taught me only of the light side but it was the reason I turned to the apprenticeship of Snoke. Anakin Skywalker, my grandfather, was stronger in the Force than his mentor. He could have been the strongest Jedi in all of the order, more so than Master Yoda for that matter. But the way they restricted him and forced him to block out the dark side only drove him to bow to it.”

              He falls quiet, his chest rising and falling rapidly with frustration. She reaches out and takes his hand as a sign of gratuity and support for his openness. He grows stiff for a moment, but allows her to hold it. His hand is so much larger than hers that she is hardly able to enclose his hand in hers. She gives it a small squeeze, and releases it. Rey does not reply to his rant but just lets his words float in the air around her.

 

              The rest of the daylight is spent without another word. Both of them leave the thick air between them alone as they reflect on the words that were said. Ren considers what had come out of his mouth. It was a flow of words he could not stop and some of his revelations brought surprise to even him. Rey is trying to make sense of what he said and more importantly consider just who she believes Kylo Ren to be. He has murdered numerous, some in front of her. He has killed his own father and laid waste to entire planets and their population. He is a creature in mask. But at the same time, she has seen the person under the mask. She can feel the toil within him between allowing the dark to overtake him and letting the light push out his evil. She has heard him question his own motives. He saved her life and taught her how to swim. It’s like there is the creature and the man, and now that she has spent so much time with the man she feels the push to separate him from the creature, though that is not how things work. Rey wants to hate him. She wants him to be awful to her and to feel a blaze of rage in every word he says. She wants it more than anything. Yet she finds herself gravitating towards him. Hoping that they will engage in some sort of conversation, whether it is serious or lighthearted and witty. It confuses the hell out of her.

              Ren wishes similar things. He wants to feel repulsed by the girl, a naïve girl, who is nothing but a beacon of light and representative of the life he left. He wants her to prove to him that he made the right decision by turning away from Ben Solo. He wants to feel the urge to kill her at every moment and force himself to not in light of the truce. But he does not. She holds a harder life than he ever could have imagined. She sets the scale of what true loneliness is and has years of experience in pain, hunger, and suffering that he can’t tribute his dark ways to. In every way she should be angry. She should be a natural with the dark side. Yet she is an anomaly in his mind, the exception of someone who should be evil yet can only find eyes for what she believes is right and that is ever shining and tainting everything he ever believed. From the first time he met her he found he didn’t feel the urge to kill her at all and it bothered him that he felt mercy towards such a threat. Rey continues to convince him that there is more than one path he can take moving forward. It frightens him.

             

 

              Ren stops suddenly, closing his eyes to concentrate on the surroundings. Something is coming. A lot of something’s. A lot of someone’s. A spike of fear erupts through the bond and he knows Rey can feel it too. They have been found.

              Clutching onto a thick branch that Rey carved down to serve as a makeshift sword, he tries to sense from what direction they are coming from.

              _“The Force is blocking their direction. It keeps spinning me around like a broken compass.”_ She states through the bond. Ren’s eyebrows knit together. It makes sense they are following their trail somehow. They stayed too long in that cave.

              _“We need to move, seek higher ground,”_ He urges and they take off into a run. Neither of them knew where they are going, only that they need to put distance between them and the enemy. Ren’s lungs burn with exhaustion as they continue to hurdle over broken branches and dodge trees through their trek. It must have been over a standard hour before they break into a clearing, and Rey lets out an excited shriek. The _Falcon_ sits parked in the middle of the clearing. Ren can’t believe it.

              They take off in a sprint to the ship. The opening begins to lower and he feels his boot hit the metal of the ramp. And then the world stops completely.

 

              “Good try. You almost made it out. But now your moment of hope is lost and it is time to restore the balance of Mortis,”

 

 

              The frozen world goes completely black.

 

 

 

              He awakes in a different place than before. The room is small, a perfect square and no door anywhere from what he can tell. He is cuffed but not chained to the floor as he had been before. Rey is nowhere in sight. He runs his hands along the stone walls searching for some sort of exit, but his fingertips find nothing but smooth surface over every inch. Reaching out through his bond, he feels Rey’s end. It is weak from her probably still being unconscious, but she is close. They took no chances this time around.

              Force, they were so close. He could see the lights on the inside of the ship at the moment they were captured. It must have been a trap. Rage consumes him and he slams his fists into one of the walls. It gives no indication of his strike but the pain traveling up his arm begs to disagree. The pain must have registered over to Rey because he feels her wake with a start.

              _“If you could try and not injure yourself deliberately when I am asleep and have my guards down, that would be appreciated.”_ Her voice is relieving to hear for some reason.

              _“I can’t help it that I’m angry. They aren’t going to give us another chance to escape now.”_ Ren can feel her mind working and debating on what to say next. She knows something. _“What is it?”_

              _“I may have a way to get out of this, but it will require something neither you or I will be comfortable with.”_ He can fell her holding her breath to press back her nerves. What the hell is she getting at? _“They need us because you are strong on the dark side and I on the light. If one of us can switch sides and only harness the powers of the opposite side, then they can’t use us to balance. We will be useless and it could give us a chance to escape.”_

              Ren hates the idea. Not that it is a bad idea, it just might work actually. But the thought of him having to go light or Rey having to go dark seems like something that can be very dangerous for either of them.

              _“Which one of us would switch?”_ He asks, half hoping for her to volunteer but also hoping that she would suggest him. He doesn’t know why.

              _“That’s where I am stuck. You could teach me how to harness the dark side but that is assuming we have time. You already know the light side so it would make sense for you to make the switch. I’m not saying you need to but— “_

 _“You’re right,”_ Ren sighs. He knows she is right with her reasoning. There is no way he can teach her enough in that time.

              _“Would it be reversible though? Is it worth it?”_ She questions, and he couldn’t help but respect the fact she doesn’t expect him to stay on the light side and give up his training.

              _“Getting us both out of here is worth it. I can make the switch, I just need time to meditate and get to that place.”_

              Their connection goes dead. Rey is left alone and Ren becomes a prisoner to his own mind.

 

 

              _There’s always been a string of light. He has always pushed it away, like tucking a loose thread from a hem under the fabric to deal with later. He would always deal with it later. This time, he grabs hold of the thread, feeling the tendril between his fingertips. It is warm, almost inviting in a way. He pulls it, just a tad, and the string extends like the stitching pulling loose. There is a hint of pain in the process, but he ignores it, focusing on staying as calm as he can. He didn’t let the anger build. He breaths in and out. In and out. In. and out. The string pulls farther. A battle erupts in his mind. The darkness is trying to fight back. It pushes roughly against his pulling and tries to break his fingers from the grip._

_In and out._

_He pulls further, the thread picking up power and a light shines from its surface. The darkness dims, but did not falter. It crashes up against the edges of his mind and he wants nothing more than to scream._

_In and out._

_He sees the face of the Supreme Leader in his head. They are memories. Memories of his whispering voice in the dead of night while he was at Luke’s academy. They were seducing, promises of power and happiness. He sees himself, just a few years younger than he is now, bowing in front of Snoke. The Supreme Leader’s face was looking down on him with as much as a smile as a man with his deformed face can manage. “My boy,” his voice echoes and the sense of belonging fills him._

_In and out._

_He pushes away and pulls the string more. This time comes a memory of his parents. His mother was brushing his hair and his father was lying on the bed making jokes to try and make his mother laugh. She only smiled as she ran the comb through his hair. She set the comb down in front of him and put her lips next to his ear. “Concentrate. Feel your mind reach out and touch the comb. Now lift it up.” He did as she told him, and the comb slowly raised. He opened one eye to check his progress and a smile erupted on his face. His mother’s mouth was back near his ear. “Now take that comb and launch it at your father as hard as you can.” His smile became bigger and more mischievous. The comb flew across the room, landing hard on Han’s stomach as if a rock was dropped on him. His gasp of surprise quickly caught his mother in a fit of laughter._

_“Should I be offended that you don’t laugh at my jokes but do laugh when our son drops a two-ton comb on my chest?” He said breathlessly but with a big smile that shone of pride. He was looking right at him, that lopsided grin ever shining._

_In and out._

_The thread is now halfway. The dark dims and occupies the corners of his mind with a swirling intensity. It feels pressured and that pressure flows throughout his entire body. He still pushes down the anger that threatens to surface in thinking of his parents. He pushes it down, but not to be stored. To be released. It is something he had not done in years, but the action brings a feeling of relief through him. With each grudge he lets go and every feeling of anger he presses out of his thoughts, the light becomes lighter and easier to tug. He pulls more and more._

_In and out._

_The light burns. It is so bright, so dormant that it shines greater than he remembers. He can feel the darkness burning. It fought so hard to stay but darkness is nothing but an absence of light. With the light coming back in slow tendrils, the darkness begins to flee. The thread separates into multiple strings, fanning out around his mind. He has never felt so disconnected from himself yet so alive. Emotions run ramped through him. All sorts of emotions. Remorse, happiness, excitement, love, anxiety, determination. Some are more foreign than others. He opens his eyes to release himself from the ever building pain that is erupting from his body but all he can see it white._

_In and out. In and out. In. and out._

              Eleo appears suddenly. Rey is lying against the wall when the opposite wall moves and reveals the tall man. He looks angry.

              “Come, your presence has been requested.”

              Rey stands obediently and follows Eleo and the guards he had brought to accompany them. They enter the long hallway once again and the freezing temperature brings gooseflesh to her arms. Rey attempts to reach out to Ren through the bond. She has heard nothing from him since he blocked her out entirely. It had been two standard days by her estimation and she feared him dead if the faint pull of his bond wasn’t still in the very back of her mind when she concentrated on it. As Eleo and she approaches the end of the hallway, Rey could already feel the heat of the chamber on her face. This was the moment she had been thinking about repeatedly. Would her plan work? Did Ren come through? She has no idea and it scared her.

              They enter the chamber and its just as she remembers. The platform stretches out flanked by seas of molten rock on every other side. Large jets of lava erupt every so often bringing waves of even hotter heat. Mother stands in the middle of the platform. Two chairs with restraints are in front of her. Someone is already sitting in one of the chairs. Ren.

              “Welcome Rey, it is time.” Mother says, her voice booming and echoing through the chamber. Ren does not turn to look at her. He still has her blocked out of the bond and it worries Rey immensely. Something feels wrong.

              Eleo leads Rey to the chair and this is the first glimpse she has of Ren. He is sitting in the chair, a calm expression over his face. Even just sitting next to him, Rey feels the light exuding from his figure. He finally looks at Rey and a reassuring smile comes to his face. His eyes are not as dark as she remembers, but more of a chocolaty color. His jaw is not set, an expression she had gotten used to in him, but instead, he seems relaxed and at peace. It is strange but she feels like jumping up and down despite the restraints Eleo had placed over her hands and knees. He is light.

              “You two have been a lot of trouble,” Mother scolds, walking around the chairs. “That rock pile was orchestrated for you to escape, for purposes of allowing us to monitor what your presences do the planet, but you did better than we had expected in evading capture. We are a tad behind schedule now, but all is forgiven now that you are both here. Mortis does thank you both, though you still are unsure of the importance of this.”

              Rey concentrates on staying calm. The last thing she needs is to allow her anger to get the best of her. She sticks to Luke’s training and finds a meditative calm within her. The bond between Kylo and her hums with the closeness and strength.

              “However, Kylo Ren, you have disappointed me.” Mother states, pressing her hand on his head harshly. He winces but did not fight the touch. His chest rises and falls evenly. “There is hardly any of the dark side with in you. You have pushed it away, and while that is clever, it will not be hidden for long.” She squeezes her fingers, digging her nails into his head. Blood begins to emerge from where her fingernails pierce the skin. Ren’s face twists into pain, but he does not lash out. He does not yell or scream. He just breathes. Mother releases her grasp from him, the blood running down his face now. He lets the pain subside and continues his restraint. Rey has never seen anyone as calm in a high-stress situation as Kylo was in that moment.

              “Insipid boy,” she hisses and holds out her hand. Ren erupts in yells of pain and agony, but Rey knows this is not the way to break him. He has spent years of enduring pain from the Supreme Leader. Years of being beaten into submission. Physical pain is something he has learned to endure, to push through. As Kylo concentrates on releasing his anger in his yells and not letting it dwell, Mother realizes what he is doing and stops her assault on his body. He slumps in relief, his brown eyes bloodshot but focused on his task.

              Mother turns and strides out of the chamber. All that is left is Ren, Rey, and the guards. His head turns to look at Rey again. He is obviously in pain, but he has a small smile on his face.

              “We will get out of here,” He says quietly. “I have a plan for us to escape but it’s your turn to trust me.”

 

 

The Mother returns a standard hour later. Her lips are still pressed together in a thin line and she does not look happy. She stands before Rey and Ren once again and lets out a frustrated breath.

“You two don’t realize what you have done. This has caused a great imbalance in the Force that has caused battle to break out among the population. Your self-centered games to preserve yourselves bring certain chaos.”

“That is not our fault,” Rey urges just as he had instructed her to. “You took us unwillingly, how could you expect us to decide to help?”

“Would you have helped if you were asked?” Mother shoots back.  Rey just shakes her head defiantly.

“Exactly,”

“No, how long as Mortis sustained before? It was in unrest during the Clone Wars, the rebellions, the battles between Jedi and Sith. There has not been balance in the universe for a millennium. Why now? You yourself are nothing but a manifestation of the Force. This place is not even a real world, just something created by the energy of the Force. If Mortis has gone so long without true balance, then how do you know things will become stable if you use us to even the fields?”

Mother steps forward, her anger rising. “You speak of things you can not comprehend, youngling. You can not decide how the universe works.”

“Then why are you trying to decide how to fix the universe?”

The Mother grits her teeth in frustration. She puts one hand on Rey’s left arm, squeezing it hard as she speaks in a low, threatening voice.

“You and Kylo Ren will be exposed to torture so vile one of you is ought to be forced to the dark side from the treatment. Soon I will get the balance Mortis needs, and no wisdom you try to throw at me will stop it.”

 Rey’s words are not wisdom by any means, but bullshit that she and him came up with. It was meant to evoke a response. It was meant to be a distraction.

“Well,” Ren says suddenly, bringing Mother’s attention away from Rey. “I suppose if you want the dark side, we will give you the dark side.”

An explosion erupts. Mother is thrust backwards, flying through the air until she tips over the edge, her fingertips clawing at the platform floor as she hangs over the lava. The guards are pushed harshly against the wall and lay unconscious. In the epicenter of the blast sits Kylo Ren and Rey, their eyes still closed and focused on welling the anger they had built up to cause the Force-blast back down to a subsided state. The shackles had flown off them by the sheer power of the Force and they stood in unison, shock across both of their faces.

“We did it,” Rey says softly, turning to Ren who looks equally as impressed with their plan as she is.

“Almost,” he states, and summons one of the guard’s blasters to his hand. He walks over to the edge of the platform where Mother is trying to pull herself up.

“Mortis can not be helped by us. We are not the solution you are looking for. In the name of the First Order,”

“And the Resistance,” Rey adds,

“You have captured and held two members against their will. You will pay the consequences for your actions.”

Ren pulls the trigger and the blast shoots out, striking her fingers that are holding onto the platform. She screams, and descends into the pool of lava. Ren and Rey watch in silence as she falls into the lava, silencing her screams in a matter of seconds.


	8. I.VIII A Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously... Mother got thrown into some lava after Kylo turns to the light.

Ren is surprised by Rey’s body suddenly pressed into his. She hugs him, her hands around his neck. He pushes through his surprise and wraps his arms around her back, standing up straight so that she is off the ground in his grasp for a few moments. He could feel her smile pressing into his shoulder and it causes him to grin. Damn, he is in trouble.

“There is time for celebrating later, we need to get out of here,” He says softly putting her down. She nods in agreement and they take off running for the exit. Rey grabs a blaster from another one of the unconscious guards and they go running down the hall. There is no one outside the door which is worrisome. Ren cautiously moves forward, reaching out with his senses to see if anyone approached, but of course the fact Mortis is one big blob of Force does not help.

“Wait,” Rey stops, grabbing his elbow. He turns and sees that she too is accessing the Force. A smile spreads across her face, “I found our light sabers,”

 

 

Never had Rey thought she would be sitting on the bridge of the _Millennium Falcon_ next to Kylo Ren. It never even crossed her mind that they would emerge from their prison together light sabers in hand, and not be fighting each other, but instead the waves of guards that waited for them all the way to the ship. They worked as a unit, fighting their way through the army that outnumbered them by the hundreds. The Force was with them.

They reached Rey’s ship—Ren’s old family ship—and found that they had left it mostly alone besides using it as bait to draw them into a trap. Rey was thankful for that. She started the take off protocol as Ren armed the blaster. They took off, and Rey shot them into hyperspace as soon as she was far enough from the atmosphere, punching in familiar coordinates and then going to find Ren. As she emerges from the bridge, Ren is coming from the blaster room. He looks relieved. This time he envelopes Rey into an embrace. They made it.

“What now?” Rey asks, looking up at him. Ren keeps his arms around her but loosening his grip so that he can see her face. He looks conflicted.

“I—I don’t know. Where are we in hyperspace to?” He asks.

“I wasn’t sure what the plan was. I put in Jakku’s coordinates until we had time to decide.”

“That’s at least twenty-four standard hours? That will work for the time being.” He sighs. Rey stares at him her mind racing. Why isn’t he ordering her to put in the coordinates of a neutral planet where they can be picked up? What is making him feel the need to think? Why is he still holding me…”?

“You overthink, scavenger.” He sighs and released her from his grasp. The disappointment that comes over Rey at his loss of contact annoys her. He sits down on a bench and runs his fingers through his hair. “I am being torn apart,” he says quietly, a bit of pain running through his chest at the very words he said to his father on the skywalk of Starkiller. “I am light right now. There is a tendril of darkness still within me, of course, but right now I am light. It is so easy for me to pull that string and go back completely. I could cut the light out of me all together.” He looks up at her, conflict obvious in his face and tears beginning to form in his eyes. “But I don’t know if I want to,”

Her heart is racing. She pushes down her feelings of nervousness and excitement and sits next to him on the bench. “What makes you want to come back to the light?” She asks cautiously.

“To be honest, I am not sure. I guess the feeling. When I had to shift, it was so much pain, but when I looked back on it more of my pain came from the dark side than the light. It’s hard to explain, but this stupid plan of yours has forced me to consider things I have not thought about in years,” He pauses and then takes Rey’s hand in his own, as if reaching for support from her. She lets him enclose her hand in his own. “Then again, I also do not know if I want to be on the light side. That life just led me to anger and hatred. What would be different this time around?”

Rey’s head is spinning, partially from his hand running his thumb up and down her skin as he speaks, and also from the gravity of his words. She looks at him in a way she never has before. Kylo Ren’s status as a creature in a mask to her has faded to the back of her mind. All she see’s is a man looking for a new start. It both scares and excites her and the girl within her looking for her own place in the world can relate to what he is seeking.

“You talk so much of finding the balance between light and dark. That dark is not necessarily evil just stemming from a different place. Can you not be that person you speak so longingly of?” She says slowly, and Ren looks down at her with sadness.

“I don’t know. That is a thin line to be walking on. Besides, I need time to consider this. I need to meditate on it, search for my options. I won’t make any decisions right now.”

She searches his face. He has never been so open emotionally. His eyes are darkened but there is a glow to his pale skin that is unmistakable. There is also pain, pain in the tension he holds in his shoulders and the way his brows knit together. He truly is being torn apart.

“Can I ask you a question?” Rey asks and he nods in anticipation. “Do you want to be Kylo Ren?”

“What?” His face is stricken with confusion.

“When I think of Kylo Ren, I think of all black and a red crackling light saber. I think of death and destruction. I think of the murder of innocents on Jakku and patricide all rolled into a creature hiding behind a mask. I think of someone who cares about nobody but himself and the power he could potentially have. Do you want to continue to be that person?”

Ren is silent. He still holds Rey’s hand in his but he stops moving his thumb.

“I don’t see how I couldn’t be him. I can’t just stop being Kylo Ren. I am the person who did all those things whether you like it or not,” He said, a hint of hurt and anger in his voice.

“Whether _I_ like it or not?” Rey exclaims, pulling her hand from his and crossing her arms.

“Yes, you, Rey. You want nothing more than for me to be anything but Kylo Ren. You can’t deal with the things I have done unless you can put another name on me and block out the person I am. I am Kylo Ren, Rey. I killed my father and wiped out an entire village on your home planet. I set off a weapon that killed millions in a system far away from me. I am a creature in a mask, and you hate that about me because you can’t let yourself succumb to the feelings we both know we have because then you would have feelings for a monster,” His voice booms through the ship, full of emotion and the shakiness of anger. The feelings we both know we have? What the hell is he getting at?

“What the hell are you even talking about? I do not have—” Ren cuts her off by leaning forward and pressing his lips to hers, cautiously yet hungrily.

Rey feels her world begin to spin and stop simultaneously. She is frozen in place, his lips against hers. She raises her hands to push him back but instead her body reacts differently. She latches her hands onto his shoulders and pulls him to her, finally reacting to his kiss and reciprocating his action. They break for a moment and Ren looks at her cautiously. She feels absolutely terrified.

“Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.”

He wraps his arms around her back and pulls Rey into his lap, their lips reconnecting with a softer approach. This time he isn’t hungry but instead reveling in the feeling. Rey allows herself to melt into him, surrounded by the overwhelming feeling that everything just seems _right_ for as wrong as she should feel. These feelings, of course she had them. She felt the draw to him since the interrogation where he removed the helmet. The confusing attraction she put off as just because they were both strong with the Force. She ignored the intense emotions she had around him as him being her enemy and that was the proper response. She ignored the urges to be close to him or to ask him a million questions about anything. Their connection was deniable until this moment he severed any sort of fierce doubts she placed against it.

                  Their bond is buzzing with energy, just confirming that this was what was supposed to be happening. Rey wraps her arms around his neck and he presses her closer. They separate when both of them realized they are running low on air. Rey sits in his lap, her arms still tight around him and his not letting up either. They both stare at each other with wide eyes, almost in shock though they both understood what had just happened. Ren makes the first move, suddenly pushing her gently onto the bench next to him and rising. Without looking at her again he leaves her alone in the room, retiring to somewhere else in the ship.

                  Rey presses her fingers against her burning lips. As right as it feels—they feel together—she knows it was wrong. They shouldn’t… they couldn’t… they can’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but this concludes the first part of the fic! Part 2 will deal with how they interact apart with their confused emotions and I plan to blend it so it flows into TLJ. Thanks for reading!!


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